Abstract
SUMMARY The main sources that shed light on the history of 16th century Ottoman period of Ruha taken from the Safevids in 1517, are regional tax-registers (tahrir defterleri). The Ottoman san jag or district of Ruha was surveyed four times in the sixteenth century (in 1518, 1523, 1540 and 1566). According to the data derived from the registers, Ruha ' s population increased from roughly 20.000 to 60.000 between the first and the last survey. While the urban population constituted 23 to 29 percent of the district population depending on the period, as a characteristic of agrarian society, the majority of the population lived in the countryside. Besides, the semi-nomadic tribes and especially Bozuluş and Karaulus tribes appear to have been an important element of the demographic structure of the area. Economic life in the district was based on agriculture. The main crops produced in the farmsteads of tax-payers (re ' âvâ) are such grains as wheat and barley. The state maintain a taxation system dependent on the resoruces of an agrarian economy, and provided the financial resoruces of the services relating to the t imar system from tithes in kind or taxes in cash that it imposed on agricultural activities. It is obvious that the town of Ruha took advantage of being situated on the caravan road of Mosul-Ruha-Aleppo. As a matter of fact, the relative vivacity of commercial activities is a sign of this situation. On the other hand, the town of Ruha, whose main parts took shape according to an order provided by the system of waqf-imaret (pious foundations), was one the most typical towns of 16th century Southeastern Anatolia.
