Istanbul's Moveable Feast

Chris Gratien, Georgetown University

The Feast of the Sacrifice or Eid al-Adha, known in modern Turkey as kurban bayramı, is one of the most important holidays of the year throughout the Muslim world. It is celebrated on the 10th of Zilhicce according the lunar hijri calendar and commemorates the willingness of Ibrahim (Abraham) to sacrifice his first-born son Ismail as a sign of submission to God's will. Fortunately for Ismail (or for his half-brother Isaac in the case of the Torah), God intervened at the last moment and in his place, a lamb was offered as sacrifice. Thus, the celebrations associated with Eid al-Adha involve the sacrifice of a prized animal, which in the Ottoman Empire was usually a lamb or ram.

By the outset of the nineteenth century, the Ottoman capital of Istanbul was home to more than half a million inhabitants. If every household was to sacrifice an animal, this would mean a truly massive number of creatures, far more than would normally be found in the markets and the surrounding area. Fortunately (or unfortunately depending on whose perspective), sheep could transport themselves, allowing the livestock-rich provinces of the empire to meet the yearly demand of the capital by sending large flocks overland. The Ottoman government not only regulated the movement of these animals but also paid for large numbers of sheep to be brought and distributed to poor families of the capital that could not afford to participate in this symbolic ritual. These activities were overseen by the kasapbaşı, the chief butcher of Istanbul, who procured animals from near and far in preparation for the annual celebration.

In 1817, Eid al-Adha occurred during mid-October, just as it does this year. As this document and accompanying map show, the fall feast would require mustering 165,300 animals from Europe and Anatolia. Almost 100,000 male sheep from the Eastern European regions of the Empire such as Wallachia (Eflak) and Bulgaria and another 70,000 from Anatolia of the Kıvırcık and Karaman breeds would supply the capital with sacrificial animals. According to the document, all of these animals were males (erkek ağnam). The kasapbaşı reports that the animals were present and ready in the capital by 5 Zilhicce, a few days before the upcoming feast. The following is a table and chart based on the Ottoman original.

Europe		Percentage of Total
Eflak	28000	16.94%
Teteven	16000	9.68%
Boğdan	11600	7.02%
Avratalan (Koprivshtitsa), Otlukköy (Panagyurishte), Samako (Samokov)	30000	18.15%
Karinabad (Karnobat) and miscellaneous	10000	6.05%
Europe Total	95600	57.83%
Anatolia
Zeyve	25000	15.12%
Cihanbeyli	7000	4.23%
Karayaka	11000	6.65%
Erzurum	14000	8.47%
Yörük?	8000	4.84%
Saye Ocağı	4700	2.84%
Anatolia Total	69700	42.17%
Total	165300

The map below offers a geographical visualization of the regions mentioned in the above chart. While I have placed the points in the center of the areas of in question, I should note that these are only approximations of the various regions of origin for these sheep, which were likely procured from diverse communities of the given provinces. Some of these sacrificial lambs likely came from nomadic tribes, further muddying their geographic origins. For example, while I have placed the point for Cihanbeyli on the location of the modern district of the Konya province, this likely refers to the Cihanbeyli tribe, which migrated throughout Central Anatolia during the Ottoman period. 

Unfortunately, I cannot say with certainty where in Anatolia Zeyve would have been located (one reader suggests Konya/Karaman area) and am not certain about the penultimate listing, which appears to be Yörük but the dots are missing. Saye Ocağı was a site on the edge of Istanbul used to raise sheep for the palace and represents a rather small proportion of the total number.

This annual state-sponsored exodus of sheep represents much more than the symbolic importance of Eid al-Adha in Ottoman Istanbul. In a work by Reşat Kasaba often cited in this blog, these movements of animals across the empire serve as evidence of important pre-Tanzimat links between pastoralists of the periphery and the Ottoman center that had been previously ignored by historians. While these communities were able to maintain a large degree of autonomy due their mobility, their animals were essential not just during the annual holidays but also in supplying armies. With the distance between Moldova and Erzurum being some 2,000 km, we can see how meating Istanbul involved contributions from every corner of the empire.

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feast