the ottomans and trade || the ottomans and the yemeni coffee trade

THE OTTOMANS AND THE YEMENI COFFEE TRADEAuthor(s): JANE HATHAWAYSource: Oriente Moderno, Nuova serie, Anno 25 (86), Nr. 1, THE OTTOMANS AND TRADE(2006), pp. 161-171Published by: Istituto per l'Oriente C. A. NallinoStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25818052 .

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JANE HATHAWAY

(OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY)

THE OTTOMANS AND THE YEMENI COFFEE TRADE

In the saga of the first Ottoman period in Yemen, 1538-1636, coffee plays the role of the object of the quest, both blessing and curse, the mysterious

substance whose allure endured for the Ottomans despite years of ugly, draining warfare against various Zayd imams, not to mention a harsh climate and unfamiliar diseases. Coffee was difficult enough to cultivate, harvest, transport, and ship in the best of circumstances, but in Yemen, the difficulty of its extrac

tion was compounded by the region's peculiar natural and communal geogra

phy. Coffee trees grew in the interior highlands, which were largely inhabited by Ism c l Shicite tribes whose allegiances were notoriously fissiparous. To their north and east was the Zayd Shicite stronghold, an equally mountainous region that the Ottoman governors controlled only with great difficulty. To get the coffee beans from the growing regions to the port of Aden and, later, Mocha for

shipment thus required some sort of understanding with the Ism c l s, ideally

coupled with a relatively subdued Zayd population. The challenge was formida

ble, yet somehow the Ottomans managed it, not only while they nominally ruled Yemen but well after their expulsion in the 1630s. This paper attempts to

frame the coffee trade within the Ottoman administration of Yemen and, for the

post-expulsion period, to link it to the economic strategies of notables in the Ottoman provinces, chiefly Egypt.

Ottoman Rule, 1538-1636

Yemen became a formal addition to the Ottoman empire under the Hungarian eunuch admiral Hadim Siileyman Pa a in 1538. Originally appointed governor of Egypt, Siileyman Pa a was ordered to the Indian Ocean to protect the

empire's southern extremity from the Portuguese, who had just killed the sultan

of Gujarat; along the way, he took effective control of Yemen in its entirety, then pursued the Portuguese admiral, Afonso de Albuquerque, to India.1

1 -Qutb al-D n Muhammad b. Ahmad al-Nahrawal al-Makk (1511-1582), al-Barq al-ya m n fiJl-fath al-c utm n [The Yemenite Lightning: The Ottoman Conquest], a.k.a. Gazaw t

al-gar kisah wa * l-Atr k fi gan b al-gaz rah [The Incursions of the Circassians and Turks into

the South of the [Arabian] Peninsula], edited by G sir Hamad, Riy d, Dar al-Yam mah,

1968, p. 70, 80-92; Yahy b. al-Husayn b. al-Qasim b. Muhammad b. cAl (1625-1689),

G yat al-am n fi ahb r al-qutr al-yam n [The Utmost Security: Events in the Yemenite

OM, XXV n.s. (LXXXVI), 1, 2006, p. 161-171 Istituto per l'Oriente C. A. Nallino - Roma



I 2 JANE HATHAWAY

During the ensuing years, Yemen existed in a virtual symbiosis with Ottoman

Egypt. Governors of Egypt were often posted to Yemen at the completion of their

terms, and vice versa. One particularly resilient governor, Hasan Pa a, governed Yemen for an astonishing 25 years (1580-1604) before being transferred to Egypt; while in Yemen, he amassed an enormous fortune.2 Meanwhile, the Ottoman

garrisons at Sanca3, Aden, Mocha, and Zab d consisted of troops from the seven

regiments of Ottoman soldiery stationed in Egypt, commanded by a bey of

Egypt.3 It was probably no accident that the land tenure system in Ottoman Yemen was virtually identical to the system in Egypt, based on grants of taxation

rights over specific cities and districts, each headed by a bey or aga with the

Mamluk-sultanate-era title of c mil or k sif.^ This made it all the easier for offi

Region], edited by Sacid cAbd al-Fatt h cAs r, 2 vols., al-Q hirah, Dar al-K tib al-cArab ,

1968, II, p. 667-668, 684-685; Katib elebi (1609-1657), Tuhfet l-Kibar ft Esfar il-Bihar [The Gift of the Great: Naval Expeditions], Istanbul, Matbaa-i Bahriye, 1329/1911, p. 57-58. See

also Evliya elebi (c. 1611-1682), Evliya elebi Seyahatnamesi [Evliya elebi's Book of Travels], X: Misir ve Sudan [Egypt and Sudan], edited by Mehmed Zill oglu, Istanbul, U dal Ne riyat, 1966, p. 585, 634, for a much more favourable account of Siileyman Pa a.

2 - Yahy b. al-Husayn, G yat al-am ni, II, p. 756-781; Muhammad cAbd al-Mucti al-Ish q ,

Kit b ahb r al-uiual ft man tasarrafa ft Misr min arb b al-duwal [The Book of the Most

Important Events: The Statesmen who Administered Egypt, 1623], B l q, al-Matbacah al

cUtm niyyah, 1304/1887, p. 167.

3 - Basbakanhk Osmanli Arsivi, Istanbul (hereafter BOA), M himme Defteri 1, Nos. 1303

(Muharrem 962/November-December 1554); 1478, 1636, 1637 (all Safer 962/December

1554-January 1555); M himme Defteri 2, Nos. 42, 132 (both Rebiyulewel 963/January

February 1556); 193, 226 (both Rebiy lahir 963/February-March 1556); 716 (Receb 963/

May-June 1556); 1213, 1245 (both Ramazan 963/July-August 1556); 1281, 1351 (both ewal 963/August-September 1556), 1472, 1476, 1478, 1485 (all Zilkade 963/September

October 1556); 2025 (Rebiy lahir 964/February-March 1557); M himme Defteri 3, Nos.

252 (Zilkade 966/September 1559); 550 (Rebiyulewel 967/December 1559); M himme Defteri 4, No. 2013 (Cemaziyelahir 968/February-March 1561); M himme Defteri 5, Nos.

720 (Cemaziyelewel 973/November-December 1565); 731, 739 (Cemaziyelahir 973/January

1566); 1754, 1756 (Zilkade 973/May-June 1566); M himme Defteri 6, No. 382 (Rebiy lahir 972/November 1564); M himme Defteri 10, No. 89 (Ramazan 978/February 1571); Sams

al-D n cAbd al-Samad b. Ism c

l al-Mawzac , Duh l al-c Upn niyyin al-awwal ila al-Yaman

[The First Entrance of the Ottomans into Yemen], a.k.a. al-Ihs n ft duh l mamlakat al-Yaman

tahta zill cad lat Alc Upn n [The Beneficence: The Entry of the Realm of Yemen under the

Shadow of the Justice of the House of Osman], edited by cAbd Allah Muhammad al-Hibs ,

Bayr t, Dar al-Tanw r, 1986, p. 131, 167-168, 225.

4-BOA, M himme Defteri 1, Nos. 428, 1204 (both Zilkade 961/October 1554); 1224 (9 Muharrem 962/December 1554); M himme Defteri 2, Nos. 300 (Rebiy lahir 963/March

1556); 1473-1474, 1479 (all Zilkade 963/October 1556); M himme Defteri 4, Nos. 540, 580, 596 (all Receb 967/April-May 1560); 644, 667 (both aban 967/May-June 1560); M -

himme Defteri 5, Nos. 780 (Cemaziyelahir 973/January 1566); 1756 (12 Zilkade 973/June 1566); al-Mawzac , Duh l al-c Upn niyyin, p. 86, 90, 92, 96, 134, 143, 153-154, 161, 169

170, 192, 212, 221, 222, 225. The smaller, less commercially and strategically critical towns,

such as Tacizz, Mawzac, and al-Huguriyyah, were evidently administered by agas or beys with

the rank of aga -

i.e., below the rank of sancak beyi. On Egypt's land tenure system, see Omer

L tfi Barkan (ed.), "Misir Kanunnamesi" [Law Code of Egypt] in Barkan, XV ve XVI met



THE YEMENI COFFEE TRADE 163

rials based in Egypt to make a smooth transition to Yemen and vice versa. The fact remained, however, that it was virtually impossible for a single

imperial power to control all of Yemen. Like earlier regimes, the Ottoman gov ernors held sway mainly in the southern coastal region, particularly around the administrative capital of Zab d and the ports of Aden and Mocha. In the latter

part of the 16th century, the Ottoman central authority experimented with

dividing Yemen into two administrative units, each governed by a beylerbeyi: one, known as Yemen , consisting of 12 sancaks, the other, known as Sanc

3 ,

consisting of 17 sancaks? The cosmopolitan late 16th-century chronicler al-Na hr wal al-Makk confirms the impression, conveyed by imperial orders, that Sanc :> , which included the interior highlands, was typically assigned to a pasa

from Istanbul, while Yemen or Tih ^im (the Arabic plural of Tih mah, Yemen's western coastal plain), which comprised the central and the southern coastal regions, was more readily assigned to localized beys of Egypt and their

sons, who were promoted to the rank of pasa.6 Al-Nahr wal claims that the di vision was the brainchild of the deposed governor Mahmud Pa a (1561-1565), who wanted to torment his successor, Ridvan Pa a, by saddling him with the turbulent highlands.7 Notwithstanding, the strategic rationale behind these deci sions was doubtless the difficulty of controlling the highlands, on the one hand, and the Egyptian grandees' experience with the Red Sea trade and the port cus

toms, on the other. Control of the ports was critical to the effort against the

Portuguese, while control of both ports and highlands was critical to the flour

ishing coffee trade. Coffee had been introduced into Yemen from Ethiopia, where it grew wild,

sometime in the 15th century.8 It invaded Egypt via the Hijaz in the early to

Astrlarda Osmanli Imparatorlugunda Zira Ekonominin Hukuk ve Mal Esaslari [The Legal and

Financial Foundations of the Agricultural Economy of the Ottoman Empire in the Fifteenth

and Sixteenth Centuries], I: Kanunlar [Laws], Istanbul, B rhaneddin Matbaasi (Istanbul niversitesi Edebiyat Fak ltesi Yayinlanndan), 1943, CV, p. 355-387; Stanford J. Shaw, The

Financial and Administrative Organization and Development of Ottoman Egypt, 1517-1798,

Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1962, p. 28ff., 60-62.

5- BOA, M himme Defteri 5, Nos. 710, 711, 718 (5 Cemaziyelahir 973/28 December

1565); 752 (9 Cemaziyelahir 973/1 January 1566); 1236 (20 aban 973/12 March 1566). See also al-Nahr wal , al-Barq al-yam n , p. 159; Yahy b. al-Husayn, G yat al-am n , II, p. 724.

6- BOA, M himme Defteri 5, Nos. 710, 711, 718, 720, 731, 752, 780 (9 Cemaziyelahir 973/1 January 1566), 1702 (6 Zilkade 973/25 May 1566); al-Nahr wal , al-Barq al-yam n ,

p. 159.

7 - This was the same Mahmud Pa a who, as governor of Egypt, would be assassinated by an

unknown gunman in 1567. His mosque in Cairo is still standing. See al-Nahr wal , al-Barq

al-yam n , p. 154-155. Ridvan Pa a, meanwhile, founded an influential family of notables in

Ottoman Palestine; see Dror Ze'evi, An Ottoman Century: The District of jerusalem in the

1600s, Albany, State University of New York Press, 1996, p. 39-41, 45, 48, 49, 50, 52, 53,

55-57.

8 - Ralph S. Hattox, Coffee and Coffeehouses: The Origins of a Social Beverage in the Medieval

Near East, Seattle, University of Washington Press, 1985, p. ll ff.; Yahy b. al-Husayn, G yat al-am n , II, p. 689; Manfred Kropp, "The realm of evil: the struggle of Ottomans and Zaidis



164 JANE HATHAWAY

mid-16th century, then spread quickly to Syria and Istanbul and from there to

Italy and the rest of Europe.9 Haci Ali, the Turcophone continuator of al Nahr wal , mentions a man from Harput in eastern Anatolia, whom he calls a

Yemeni merchant, living in Egypt in 1623 while Evliya elebi, some 50 years later, reports merchants from Sammanud in the Nile Delta trading directly with

Yemen and India;10 by this time, Anatolia, Egypt, and Yemen were linked in an

international coffee network. Coffeehouses (Turkish kahvehaneler) were already ubiquitous in the Egyptian countryside by the late 17th century; an exiled Chief Eunuch of the imperial harem had established a coffee enterprise in the Nile Delta town of Minyat Zifta in the 1670s.11 The widespread popularity of Yemeni coffee allowed the Ottomans to compensate for the Portuguese inroads into the Indian spice trade that resulted from Vasco da Gama's discovery of the Cape Route around Africa.12 By the 18th century, coffee was so pervasive that it had turned Yemen into a forerunner of Washington state today: coffee was everywhere. The Danish naturalist Carsten Niebuhr repeatedly recounts spending the night in one of the coffee huts that dotted the countryside of the Tih mah.13

One problem with the coffee trade, however, was that the coffee trees them selves grew not on the coast but in Yemen's central highlands, which were largely

in the 16th-17th centuries as reflected in historiography", in B. Knutsson, V. Mattsson, and

M. Persson (eds.), Yemen: Present and Past, Lund, Lund University Press, 1994, p. 93. On

coffee cultivation and preparation in the region, see Richard Pankhurst, Economic History of

Ethiopia, 1800-1935, Addis Ababa, Haile Sellassie I University Press, 1968, p. 198-203.

9 - Hattox, Coffee and Coffeehouses, p. 17-41, 74-81; al-Nahr wal , al-Barq al-yam n , p. 128,

401; BOA, M himme Defteri 5, No. 612 (Cemaziyelewel 973/November 1565); M himme

Defteri 7, Nos. 377, 389 (Rebiy lahir 975/October 1567) (on closing down coffeehouses in

Jerusalem and Cairo). See also Edward W. Lane, An Account of the Manners and Customs of the

Modern Egyptians, fifth edition, edited by Edward Stanley Poole, new introduction by John

Manchip White, New York, Dover Publications, 1973, p. 332-333.

10 - Haci Ali, Ahbar iil-Yemani [Yemeni Events, 1666-1667], Istanbul, S leymaniye Library, MS Hamidiye 886, fo. 206v; Evliya elebi, Seyahatname, X, p. 609; see also p. 675.

11 - Jane Hathaway, "The wealth and influence of an exiled Ottoman eunuch in Egypt: the

waqf inventory of c Abbas Agna", Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient,

XXXVII (1994), p. 296, 302, 307-308, 317. See also Evliya elebi, Seyahatname, X, p. 551,

592, 600, 605, 606, 624, 675. 12 - Andre Raymond, Le Caire des Janissaires: L Apog e de la ville ottomane sous cAbd al-Rah

m n Katkhuaa, Paris, ditions CNRS, 1995, p. 55-56; Hattox, Coffee and Coffeehouses, p. 72.

13 - Carsten Niebuhr, Travels through Arabia and Other Countries in the East, translated by Robert Heron, Edinburgh, R. Morrison and Son, Booksellers, Perth; G. Mudie, Edinburgh; and T. Vernor, London, 1792; reprint in Beirut, Librairie du Liban, n.d., p. 55, 68, 94 (on grow

ing and trading regions), 265-266, 280, 299, 307, 309, 314, 333, 350. The botanist Albert

Deflers in the late 19th-century reports a mix of coffee huts and huts serving qisr, the tradi

tional Yemeni drink of boiled coffee-bean husks; this may attest to the decline in the interna

tional trade in Yemeni coffee, resulting in renewed catering to local tastes. See Albert Deflers,

Voyage au Y men: Journal dune excursion botanique faite en 1887 dans les montagnes de VArabie

Heureuse, Paris, Paul Klincksieck, 1889, p. 29, 31, 38, 40, 52, 78, 80, 82, 86, 88, 93, 98, 100,

103, 105.




the domain of Ism c l tribes.14 The Ism c l s were, so to speak, the wildcard in the

politics of Ottoman Yemen, existing geographically and politically in-between the

Zayd s, who were loyal to their imam, and the Ottoman authorities, along with the

mostly Sh f c coastal population who tended to support them. To get the coffee beans from the mountains to the coast for shipment therefore required the Otto mans to reach some sort of agreement, or at least modus vivendi, with these tribes.

Any tribal unrest would, naturally, threaten tax and customs revenues, to say noth

ing of the coffee supply itself. About such agreements we have distressingly little direct information. During the late 16th century, however, they would have been the purview of the pasa who governed Sanca\ We also know from archival sources that the Ottomans levied taxes on the tribal regions of the interior, and that the gar rison forces' salaries were drawn from customs levies on baharat, literally "spices",

which came to be virtually synonymous with coffee.15 Small wonder, then, that Ridvan Pa a, the first governor of Sanc :>, resolved to complete the pacification of the Ism c l territories under his control. Oppressive taxation and ruthless pacifica tion attempts, however, could easily push the Ism c l s into the arms of the Zayd imam, who might use their support to launch a revolt against the Ottomans. To balance things out, therefore, the Ottoman administration rewarded those Ism c l leaders who were quietist, rather than militant, and content to live under Ottoman

rule; thus, Ridvan Pa a bestowed tax farms on the sons and grandson of the chief Ism c l missionary, Ism c l al-D c

.16

Subsequently, two aacis of the Hamd n family fought for the Ottomans.17 Like the Zayd s, however, the Ism c l s seldom, if ever, acted as a monolithic

entity. As a result of Ridvan Pa a's measures, combined with the activities of a

rebellious Zayd imam, al-Nahr wal tells us, the Ism c l s were split into five

groups: those quietists who continued to follow their chief d ct, those allied with Ridvan Pa a, those who did not take sides, those who supported the Zayd imam, and those who fled Yemen for India.18

The Zayd imam in question was al-Mutahhar b. Saraf al-D n, who in 1566 declared full-scale gih d against the Ottoman administration. The struggle for Yemen between the Ottomans and al-Mutahhar was particularly hard-fought and brutal. The Ottomans enjoyed no technological advantage of the sort that had made Egypt a relatively easy conquest decades earlier.19 The Zayd s had

14 - On their locations, see Deflers, Voyage au Y men, p. 38, 40-41, 46-47, 50.

15 - BOA, M himme Defteri 3, Nos. 1493, 1499 (6 Zilhicce 967/28 August 1560).

16-Yahy b. al-Husayn, G yat al-am n , p. 726; al-Nahr wal , al-Barq al-yam n , p. 165

169, 227; BOA, Maliyeden M dewer 4118 (1000/1591-1592), p. 32, 38, 41. See also [Mustafa Bey al-]Rumuzi, Tarih-i Feth-i Yemen [History of the Conquest of Yemen, to 1568],

Istanbul, Topkapi Palace Library, MS Revan 1297, fos. 44r, 45v.

17 - al-Nahr wal , al-Barq al-yam n , p. 227-230, 269, 297, 323-327; Rumuzi, Tarih-i Feth-i

Yemen, ff. 45v, 65r-v, 88v-89r. Deflers notes that before the second Ottoman conquest of

Yemen in 1872, a Hamd n missionary controlled the area north of Sanc 3; see Voyage au

Y men, p. 40-41,46-47.

18 - al-Nahr wal , al-Barq al-yam n , p. 167-170.

19 - cAbd al-Rahm n b. cAl b. Muhammad Ibn al-Daybac (d. ca. 1537), Kit h Qurrat al



i66 JANE HATHAWAY

acquired firearms and cannon in the early years of the 16th century, when Yemen was briefly occupied by the Mamluk sultanate and by a curious regime of Ottoman naval officers to whom al-Nahr wal refers as l venos, the Ottoman

designation for a mercenary, above all a naval mercenary;20 moreover, they could

always retreat into the mountains. Finally, the grand vezir Koca Sinan Pa a led an invading force that accomplished what the chroniclers memorialize as the second conquest of Yemen .21 Following this ordeal, Ottoman Yemen was

restored to its original status as an undivided administrative unit. Some two decades of inconclusive infighting among rival lines of imams and

Hasan Pa a, the famous 2 5-year Ottoman governor, ensued. In the closing years of the 16th century, however, a new line of Zayd imams, originating with al

Q sim (r. 1592-1620), proclaimed a new dacwa, or "call".22 Al-Qasim's son, al

Mu^ayyad Bi-ll h Muhammad, forced the Ottomans out of Yemen, which, this

time, the Ottomans did not try very hard to defend. Upheaval in the imperial capital prevented the Porte from focusing on Yemen,23 which in any case may have represented too great an investment in manpower and materiel. Although the last Ottoman governor of Yemen, Q ns h Pa a, a former bey of Egypt, landed with a combined force of close to 14,000 soldiers and Arab tribesmen from Egypt, their numbers were quickly depleted by desertion and disease, as well as warfare.24 Meanwhile, the imams armies were enlarged by seemingly

cuy n bi-ahb r al-Yaman al-maym n [The Book of the Delight of the Eyes: Events in Yemen

the Fortunate], edited by Muhammad b. cAl al-Akwac al-Hiw l , 2 vols., al-Q hirah, Mat

bacat al-Sacadah, 1977, II, p. 225; Yahy b. al-Husayn, G yat al-am ni, II, p. 644; al-Nahr -

wal , al-Barq al-yam ni, p. 21; Rumuzi, Tarih-i Feth-i Yemen, ff. 42v, 69r.

20 - al-Nahrawal , al-Barq al-yam n , p. 32-59; Yahy b. al-Husayn, G yat al-am ni, II, p. 668-685. Levendczn refer to any type of mercenary; however, it is frequently applied to naval

personnel. See the references to levendler-i donanma-i Hiimayun (levends of the imperial navy) in BOA, Kamil Kepeci, Kahve Riisumu 4519 (1129/1717). See also Gustav Bayerle, Pashas,

Begs, and Effendis: A Historical Dictionary of Titles and Terms in the Ottoman Empire, Istanbul, Isis Press, 1997, p. 102; M. Yakub Mughul, "Portekizli'lerle Kizildeniz'de Miicadele ve Hi

caz'da Osmanli H kimiyetinin Yerlesmesi Hakkinda Bir Vesika" [A document concerning the

struggle with the Portuguese in the Red Sea and the establishment of Ottoman rule in the

Hijaz], Belleten, 11/3-4 (1965), p. 46; Riza Nour, "L'Histoire du croissant", Revue de turcologie 1/3 (February 1933), p. 88, new series 317.

21 - al-Nahr wal , al-Barq al-yam n , p. 205-213, 218-443; al-Mutahhar's surrender occurs

on p. 427-430. See also al-Ish q , Ahb r al-uwal, p. 154.

22 - Yahy b. al-Husayn, G yat al-am ni, II, p. 769-814; Haci Ali, Ahbar iil-Yemani, f. 221r-v.

23 - Haci Ali notes that Fazh Pa a, governor from 1622-1624, could expect no help from the

capital in the wake of the Janissary rebellion that resulted in the murder of Sultan Osman II

(1618-1622), and its aftermath. See Ahbar iil-Yemani, f. 205v.

24 - Haci Ali, Ahbar l-Yemani, f. 210v-2l6r; Yahy b. al-Husayn, G yat al-am ni, p. 831; al

Mawzac , Duh l al-c Utm niyyin, p. 218; Anonymous, Kitab-i Tevarih-i Misr-i Kahire-i Hatt-i Hasan Posa [The Book of Histories of Cairo in the Calligraphy of Hasan Pa a, to 1683], Istanbul, S leymaniye Library, MS Haci Mahmud Efendi 4877, f. 36r; A.S. Tritton, , The Rise of the Imams of Sanaa, London, Oxford University Press, 1925; reprint in Westport, CT, Hyperion Press, Inc., 1981, p. 94, 97.



THE YEMENI COFFEE TRADE I67

inexhaustible waves of tribesmen.25 Q ns h Pa a finally asked the imam for safe

passage to Mecca,26 leaving another Egyptian bey, Arnavud Mustafa, with 1,000 soldiers to face the Zayd siege of Mocha. Mustafa Bey sent a desperate message to the governor of Egypt, pleading for reinforcements, but never received a reply. By this time, his men were utterly demoralized. Three hundred died in the course of the siege. Finally, in 1636, Arnavud Mustafa Bey and the remnant of his army evacuated Mocha on an Indian merchant ship and sailed back to

Egypt.27 With that, the first period of Ottoman rule in Yemen ended.

The Post-expulsion Period

Naturally, Egypt's connections with Yemen did not cease completely once the Ottomans had been driven from the province. The sons of al-Mutahhar, the imam who rebelled in the 1560s, had been taken onto the Ottoman payroll and

given tax farms. One of them, Ibrahim b. al-Mutahhar, evidently served as a spy for the Ottomans, although it is questionable whether this relationship contin ued beyond 1636 or outside of Yemen.28 On the other hand, there is at least circumstantial evidence of population movement between Ottoman Egypt and Yemen both before and after the Ottoman ouster. Governors relocating from

Egypt to Yemen and vice versa must surely have taken along personnel from their previous posting. Undoubtedly Hasan Pa a, who governed Yemen for 25

years before being assigned to Egypt, served as an unprecedented conduit for Yemeni influence in Egypt. He had made his fortune in Yemen; it is difficult to

believe that he would have given up his connections there once posted to Cairo.

Ongoing warfare in Yemen, lamentably, provided the most reliable conduit of

exchange. Egyptian beys, soldiers, and bedouin tribesmen routinely served in

Yemen; the soldiers, at least, occasionally deserted to the Zayd imam, who used them either as auxiliary troops or as agricultural workers.29 Even decades after Yemen had been lost, Evliya elebi tells of a group of Ethiopian rebels who fled from the Ottoman governor of Abyssinia to the Zayd imam-, in the late 18th

century, meanwhile, Niebuhr reports occasional vagabond Turks who served

the imam as gunners.30 If some Ottoman soldiers stayed in Yemen, we can only

25 - Haci Ali, Akbar l-Yemani, ff. 2l4v, 217r.

26 - Ibid., f. 218r; Yahy b. al-Husayn, G yat al-am n , II, p. 839.

27 - Haci Ali, Ahbar l-Yemani, ff. 217r-220r; Yahy b. al-Husayn, G yat al-am ni, II, p. 839.

28-BOA, Maliyeden M dewer 4118 (1000/1591-1592), p. 35, 40, 48; 7555 (1009/1600 1601), p. 18, 49, 72, 99, 107, 108, 111, 160, 172, 197, 221, 227, 228, 248 (Ibrahim b. al

Mutahhar listed as a spy); Yahy b. al-Husayn, G yat al-am ni, II, p. 729, 776-777.

29 - Haci Ali, Ahbar l-Yemani, f. 217r; al-Nahr wal , al-Barq al-yam nt, p. 128, 196, 269,

388; Yahy b. al-Husayn, G yat al-am ni, II, p. 697, 774, 799; R.B. Serjeant, "The post-me dieval and modern history of Sanca' and the Yemen, ca. 953-1382/1545-1962" in R.B. Ser

jeant and Ronald Lewcock (eds.), Sanca): An Arabian Islamic City, London, World of Islam

Festival Trust, 1983, p. 80. Agricultural workers are mentioned specifically by Yahy b. al-Hu

sayn, G yat al-am ni, II, p. 804.

30 - Evliya elebi, Seyahatname, X, p. 677; Niebuhr, Travels, p. 91.



i68 JANE HATHAWAY

imagine that Yemeni soldiers, most of whom were tribesmen, occasionally re

turned to Egypt with the Ottoman detachments. In the face of the Ottoman

expulsion, tribesmen who had supported the Ottomans must have been tempted to join them in flight. Indeed, the 18th-century chronicler of Egypt known as

Ahmad Kanya cAzeb n al-Damurd s at several points mentions a tribal popula tion of the Nile Delta whom he calls Zayidiyyah.31 These could conceivably have included the descendants of Zayd tribesmen who opposed the Q sim

dynasty-perhaps even the family of al-Mutahhar and their followers. So far as the coffee trade specifically is concerned, the Ottoman expulsion

would have dealt a blow to Ottoman attempts to control the transport of coffee within Yemen. For the remainder of the 17th century, in any event, the Otto mans were at the virtual mercy of the Qasim imam, who derived a healthy profit from the coffee trade. The Ottoman court historian Mustafa Naima

(1655-1716) deplores the outflow of Ottoman revenues enriching Yemen, as well as India.32 Niebuhr, writing in the 18th century, reports that the imam received one-quarter of the retail price of all coffee sold.33 Undeniably, though, the coffee trade from Mocha to Egypt continued briskly, peaking only two or three decades after the Ottoman ouster. Indeed, the great coffee fortunes of some of Egypt's grandee households, such as the Gediks, the Kazdaghs, and the

Sarayb s, were made well after the Ottomans had left Yemen.34 One key reason,

31- Ahmed K hya c Azeb n al-Damurd s , al-Durrah al-musanah fi ahbar al-Kinanah [The

Protected Pearl: Events in Egypt [land of the Kin nah tribe], c. 1755], British Museum, MS

Or. 1073-1074, p. 187-188, 364-367; Ahmed elebi b. cAbd al-Gani, Awdah al-is r t fi man

tawalla Misr al-Q hirah min al-wuzara* waD l-b s t [The Clearest Signs: The Ministers and Pasas

who Governed Cairo, c. 1737], edited by A.A. cAbd al-Rah m, al-Q hirah, Maktabat al-H n

g , 1978, p. 528. For the term used to describe Zayd s within Yemen, see Ibn al-Daybac, Qur

ratal-cuy n, II, p. 133, 160, 172, 174-175, 225; al-Nahr wal , al-Barq al-yam n , p. 20, 21,

27, 28, 49, 289; Yahy b. al-Husayn, G yat al-am ni, II, p. 645. See also Julius Wellhausen, The Arab Kingdom and its Fall, translated by Margaret Graham Weir, Beirut, Khayats (Khayats Oriental Reprint Series, no. 7), 1927, p. 384-385, where the term applies to the original followers of Zayd b. cAl .

32 - Quoted in Zeki Arslantiirk, Naimaya gore XVII. Y zy Osmanli Toplum Yapist [Sev

eenth-Century Ottoman Social Structure according to Naima], Istanbul, Ayi igikitaplan, 1997, p. 89.

33 - See Niebuhr, Travels, p. 88. See also Paul Dresch, "Imams and tribes: the writing and

acting of history in Upper Yemen" in Philip S. Khoury, and Joseph Kostiner (eds.), Tribes and

State Formation in the Middle East, Berkeley, University of California Press, 1990, p. 267;

Tritton, Rise of the Imams ofSanca', p. 119. Fran ois Blukacz notes a tax on profits from the

India trade imposed by the expansionist imam al-Mutawakkil Ism c

l (r. 1644-1676) on the

Hadramawti port of Sihr (in today's western Oman) after his conquest of this region in 1655; see Fran ois Blukacz, "Le Yemen sous l'autorit des imams zaidites au XVIIe si cle: Une

ph m re unit "

in Michel Tuchscherer (ed.), Le Y men, pass et pr sent de Tunit , Revue du Monde Musulman et de la M diterran e, no. 67, Paris, disud, 1994, p. 48.

34 - Jane Hathaway, The Politics of Households in Ottoman Egypt: The Rise of the Qazdaghs,

Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1997, p. 25, 35-36, 74-80, 132, 134-137; Raymond, Le Caire des Janissaires, p. 80-85; Doris Behrens-Abouseif, Azbakiyya and its Environs: From Azbak to Ismail, 1476-1879, Cairo, Institut Fran ais d'Arch ologie Orientale, 1985, p. 55-60,




no doubt, was that the grandees could compensate for their lack of control of internal transport by dominating other features of the trade, notably shipping overseas and overland. The ships that transported coffee through the Red Sea were frequently owned by higher officers of Egypt's Janissary regiment. Typi cally, these were Indian ships that the officers purchased, sometimes in partner ship with other officers or with overseas merchants; Egypt itself does not appear to have had a ship-building industry for most of the Ottoman era.35 That Yemen lacked a reliable supply of ships of its own in the 17th century is illustrated by the evacuation of Arnavud Mustafa Bey on an Indian commercial

vessel, but even more damningly by the 1679 episode in which the Zayd imam

expelled the Jews of Sanc 3 and the highlands. Driven to the inland town of

Mawzac, they waited in vain for a ship to appear to transport them into exile; in the end, they remained in Mawzac for roughly a year until, alarmed by the decline of the handicrafts industry in their absence, the imam permitted them to return home.36

Egypt's Janissary officers also monopolized the tax farms of the customs at the Red Sea and Nile ports through which Yemeni coffee had to pass. The household known as Gedik used their control of the customs at the Mediterranean ports of

Alexandria, Rosetta, and Damietta to profit from European imports and exports of coffee and other goods. Thus, in 1720, the French consul in Egypt mourned the death of the Janissary officer Gedik Mehmed Kanya, who had allowed French merchants to export coffee from Egypt without paying exorbitant taxes, doubtless in exchange for reciprocal favours.37 The Gedik household cannot have been alone in this sort of practical arrangement.

Duties connected to the annual pilgrimage to Mecca added to the Janissa ries' control over the transport of coffee. Red Sea ships typically stopped at

Jidda, where coffee was sold to pilgrims. Ships coming from Egypt with grain for the Holy Cities could presumably reload at Jidda with coffee.38 Three Janis sary officers from Egypt served as official protectors of the pilgrimage caravan all

along its route; by the early 18th century, officers of the Kazdagh household mo

nopolized all these posts, creating a lucrative nexus of pilgrimage and coffee trade.39 Small wonder that among the possessions in the tent of S leyman Kah

63-67.

35-Hathaway, Politics of Households, p. 77, 80, 135 and n. 50; Michel Tuchscherer, "Le

P lerinage de l' mir Sulaym n G wis al-Qazdugl , sird r de la caravane de la Mekke en 1739",

Annales Islamologiques, XXIV (1988), p. 162, 172.

36 - P.S. Van Koningsveld, J. Sadan, and Q. al-Samarrai, Yemenite Authorities and Jewish Mes

sianism: Ahmad ihn N sir al-Zayd 's Account of the Sabbathian Movement in Seventeenth

Century Yemen and its Aftermath, Leiden, Leiden University, Faculty of Theology, 1990, esp.

p. 11-19,41-117.

37 - Andr Raymond, Artisans et commer ants au Caire au XVIIIe si cle, 2 vols., Damascus,

Institut Fran ais de Damas, 1973-1974,1, p. 177.

38 - Hathaway, Politics of Households, p. 35-36, 69, 80, 98, 134.

39 - Ibid., p. 74, 77, 80.



rjo JANE HATHAWAY

ya al-Kazdagh, who died of an apparent asthma attack in 1739 while waiting to

set out on the hajj, were ground coffee beans.40 Stileyman had no doubt in

tended to trade these beans in the course of the pilgrimage, perhaps selling them in locales that lay along the outgoing route. During the 1750s, the duumvirate

of Ibrahim Kanya al-Kazdagh and Ridvan Kanya al-Jalf , which dominated

Egypt, was rooted in a partnership in the coffee trade. The chronicler al-Da

murd s records that Ibrahim gave a third of whatever entered his hand to

Ridvan, at length explaining that what came into Ibrahim's hand was six ar fi, or imperial gold pieces, from each load of coffee beans that entered the spice customs, which the Kazdaghs, of course, controlled.41 Customs duties, shipping privileges, and trade opportunities provided by the hajj, in short, seem to have

compensated at least partially for the loss of tax revenues from the coffee

growing regions in Yemen.

Only in the latter part of the 18th century, when the Q sim dynasty's grip had weakened outside their northern stronghold, does it seem likely that the

grandees of Egypt or any other Ottoman province could have cultivated a work

ing relationship with the tribes of the Yemeni interior, above all the Ism c l s.

Ottomans do seem to have been trading in Yemen to a limited extent by this

time; the Yemeni chronicler al-Bahkal mentions a dispute between two Turk ish merchants and two sarifi, or descendants of the Prophet, who were in the

Q sim imams entourage.42 By this time, however, Yemeni coffee was being undercut by the lower-quality beans from France's Caribbean colonies. The

preferred drink of Egyptians of relatively modest substance was now an afford

able blend of the Yemeni and the French Caribbean products.43 Not coinciden

tally, leadership of the Kazdagh household had passed from Janissary officers to

beys who controlled the tax farms of Egypt's subprovinces, including the grain producing villages endowed to the pious foundations (evkaf) of the Holy Cities.44

We may never know the full extent or complexity of the Ottomans'-ad

ministrators, grandees, and merchants alike - connections to the interior tribes

of Yemen, or indeed to Yemen's own merchants. What we can conclude, how

ever, is that the experience of administering this troublesome province allowed the Ottomans to become familiar with the web of communal and regional loyalties that covered the landscape and that they had to negotiate if they were

40 - Tuchscherer, "Le P lerinage de l' mir Sulaym n G wis al-Qazdugl ", passim.; Hathaway,

Politics of Households, p. 85, 135.

41 - al-Damurd s , Durrah, p. 560, 577; Hathaway, Politics of Households, p. 96, 136.

42 - cAbd al-Rahm n b. Hasan al-Bahkal , Quintessence de l'or du r gne du Ch rif Muhammad

h. Ahmad, edited and translated by Michel Tuchscherer as Imams, notables et b douins du

Y men au XVIIIe si cle, Textes Arabes et Etudes Islamiques, XXX, Cairo, Institut Fran ais

d'Arch ologie Orientale, 1992, p. 175.

43 - Robert L. Playfair, A History of Arabia Felix or Yemen, Amsterdam, Philo Press; St.

Leonards, Ad Orientam, Ltd., 1970 (reprint of the 1859 ed.), p. 114-115; Raymond, Artisans

et commer ants, I, p. 156ff.; Hathaway, Politics of Households, p. 46, 137.

44 - Hathaway, Politics of Households, p. 46, 78-79, 98-99, 103, 131, 160.



THE YEMENI COFFEE TRADE

to profit from the commerce in coffee. Merchants and grandees used the residue

of this knowledge to entrench themselves in the trade, forming a geographical and commercial complement to the Yemeni growers and carriers that remained unshakable even after the Ottoman ouster.



the ottomans and trade || the ottomans and the yemeni coffee trade

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