THE STATE OF GOVERNMENT OFFICIALS CONCERNING ILLEGAL INCIDENTS IN THE OTTOMAN PROVINCE AN EXAMPLE OF SARUHAN SANJAK

Saruhan, one of the sanjaks of the Ottoman State in the Western Anatolia, in addition to having various features, has witnessed illegal events that took place within its structure. These events are similar to those occurring in other parts of the Ottoman Empire. In this study, the government officials who played an important role in the occurrence and prevention of illegal incidents in the Saruhan Sanjak, in other words, "Soldiers" were discussed. The state of the government officials in these incidents has been evaluated in terms of their positive and negative aspects in line with the records from the archive documents. In addition, some issues that the Ottoman Empire paid attention to, applications such as rewarding, compensation and various orders were included with examples from the records from the archive documents. The Ottoman Empire paid utmost care not to harm innocent people while fighting against the bandits. Also, in order to be successful in fighting against the bandits despite its economic difficulties, while revealing all its possibilities, it collected financial support from the public by means of taxation. In the study, the documents, especially the ones called "Muhimme Books", recorded in various classifications obtained from the Presidential Ottoman Archive were used. Keywords: Ottoman, Saruhan, government official, crime, punishment