Jerusalem’s Public Kitchen: What It Says about Ottoman Governance

Constructing Ottoman Beneficence is an in-depth look at the Jerusalem public kitchen (imaret) or pious endowment in Jerusalem’s Old City, established in the 1550s by Hurrem Sultan, wife of the Ottoman Sultan Suleiman. The complex on the slope of Aqbat al-Sitt, one block south of the Via Dolorosa (an ancient processional route in the Old City), included a mosque, 55 rooms, a soup kitchen, woodshed, bathhouse, caravansary, and stables. By Ottoman standards it was modest, but “in the city space of Jerusalem it was of outstanding proportions.”1

When Hurren Sultan established the Hasseki Sultan imaret, it was only the second soup kitchen in Jerusalem, a locale described by author Amy Singer as both “holy city” and “provincial town.” Hurrem Sultan stipulated that anyone who entered the space be given “a ladle of soup and two loaves of bread at every meal served”2 and a piece of stew meat on Fridays. The kitchen has been in continuous operation since then, and since 1920, the facility has shared space with the Muslim Vocational Orphanage.

Singer explains her reasons for focusing on the establishment of this facility, which embodies the beneficence of its powerful patroness: “It opens a window on the entire culture of Ottoman imperial philanthropy [and] aims to untangle and explicate the social realities, economic pressures, political ambitions, beneficent practices and spiritual promptings which created a philanthropic endeavor and a uniquely Ottoman institution.”3 Over time, it became more of a Jerusalem cultural fixture and less associated with the imperial center of the Ottoman Empire. In five chapters, the author discusses the facility in the context of Ottoman waqf establishments, the founder’s intentions for this specific endowment, the act of pious endowments by powerful women, and the daily functioning of this specific soup kitchen in Jerusalem.

Chapter 1, “Devote the Fruits to Pious Purposes,” explains the origins of pious endowments (waqf) within the Islamic tradition and provides the cultural context of such practices in the Ottoman period. According to Muslim lore, the Prophet Muhammad set up the first waqf using wealth left to him by a follower. In another story, ‘Umar ibn al-Khattab asked the Prophet for advice about what to do with land in his possession, and the Prophet advised him to ensure that the land was never sold or passed to another through inheritance, but rather that the proceeds from it be used for charity. By the ninth century, this practice had become widespread throughout the Muslim world. By the 1550s, “Hurrem’s endowment was thus part of an established culture of imperial beneficence, integral to the identity of the Ottoman empire and its rulers.”4

As Singer explains, charitable giving was not unknown in the region; it was part of other religious traditions that preceded Islam. But she makes this observation:

For members of the imperial family, creating a waqf was an expression of spiritual values, but it had other purposes as well, such as establishing patronage, portraying social status, and affirming political legitimation.

Chapter 2, “A Bowl of Soup and a Loaf of Bread,” explains the process of creating an endowment and the motivations for establishing this particular soup kitchen.

Singer describes the paperwork generated in the creation of the endowment as “a superhighway of documentation.”6 Ten title deeds transferred properties from the sultan to his consort that were intended to provide a revenue stream for the imaret.

The endowment deeds (which lacked the “dramatic beauty” of the title documents) begin with pious sentiments and praise of the Hurrem and then move on to the nuts and bolts of the imaret: a list of properties that would be associated with the kitchen, the amount of revenue each property was expected to generate, the staff and their duties and salaries, and even specific recipes for soups that would be served and meals to be served on holidays.

Why did the sultan’s consort choose Jerusalem as the site of her final endowment? The author offers several reasons that likely contributed to that decision—some related to piety and others to politics. It is possible that she was responding to a citizens’ request for such a facility, since the city grew under the Ottomans and needed a steady food supply. And it was undoubtedly fitting for a Muslim ruler to have an endowment in that city. The author observes that “despite the easy conquest of the city, the Ottomans had to work to insert themselves into the built fabric of this over-memorialized space.”8 And that Suleiman did, with an eye perhaps to the foreign pilgrims who would carry the news of the Ottoman emperor’s “impressive new constructions” in the holy city—restoring the city’s fortification system and its water supply and repairing the Dome of the Rock and al-Aqsa Mosque.9

The site itself was selected deliberately from among the few available sites in the vicinity of al-Aqsa Mosque compound. The site had some buildings, which could be repurposed by the new endowment, and it was associated with other pious women. Possibly Hurrem wanted that connection to beneficent women as a kind of blessing for her own project. And then, she had personal considerations: She was ailing when it was underway, and perhaps hoped that it would secure her a gentle afterlife.

The author discusses the establishment of the Jerusalem endowment as a counterpart to the much grander Suleymaniye complex in Istanbul:

The Suleymaniye dominated Istanbul’s skyline and was a more impressive landmark than the Aya Sofiya. The Jerusalem imaret did not have the same effect.

By the 16th century, Ottoman imperial women engaged in philanthropy that was not necessarily apolitical; in fact, the establishment of the Jerusalem imaret itself can be seen as part of Ottoman maneuvers to “conquer” and “colonize” Jerusalem, to stamp it as Ottoman.

When she established the imaret, Hurrem was part of a tradition of imperial women acting as compassionate benefactresses in Jerusalem and elsewhere in the Muslim and Byzantine empires. Singer asserts that “Hurrem rivalled her Muslim paradigms and surpassed the Ottoman women who preceded and followed her . . . She was the most active and visible Ottoman patroness ever, and this in itself was testimony to the unique position and power she achieved.”12

Two of these benefactresses, Hurrem and the Mamluk al-Sitt Tunshuq al-Muzaffariyya, had a documented association with the imaret; the latter was responsible for the distinctive outer appearance of the imaret. But it was Hurrem and the Byzantine Empress (later Saint) Helena whose reputations were mingled with the site in subsequent years, despite the lack of documentation linking the latter to the site at all. Chapter 3 (“Ladies Bountiful”) explores the roles of these strong women as well as Ottoman predecessors and successors—the mothers, daughters, sisters, and wives of the sultans.

From the historical focus of chapter 3, the author returns in chapter 4 (“Serving Soup in Jerusalem”) to the micro focus on the actual imaret—the process of setting it up and the extent to which it fulfilled its mission. Exploration of these topics offers a detailed view of Jerusalem society and economy, and through it, that of the empire. A lot can be learned from the manager’s reports. We learn, for example, of problems with Jerusalem’s water supply. The endowment included public baths, but they had to be closed when water was unavailable, which meant that a revenue stream was unavailable. Because funds for repairs were not available, renovations could only be made slowly, when funds could be raised. It also is clear that the imaret was linked to the grain trade in the Mediterranean. It had to import rice from Egypt, because the immediate area did not provide it, and its surplus could be sold to other parts of the empire.

The imaret served two meals a day, but soon it was overwhelmed by the number of poor people who relied on its charity for a meal. Because it was not possible to turn away hungry people from the sultan’s soup kitchen, the manager decided to serve smaller portions once a day. It is interesting that portions for widows were not cut; the author speculates that this privilege might have been one way of compensating for other discrimination faced by widows, such as being the last to be served on most days. The kitchen was run professionally; the cooks required specific equipment, and the managers maintained quality ingredients. Food was not to be removed from the imaret, but an exception was made for the Sufi master (Sheikh al-Dajani) and his 16 disciples, who lived in the Franciscan Monastery on Mount Zion. Singer’s interpretation about the effect of this exception is worth quoting:

Soup kitchens did not originate with the Ottomans, but they became widespread under Ottoman rule. They served a core function: “the large kitchens became an integral component of the Ottoman project of settlement, colonization, legitimization, and urban development.”14 In the fifth and final chapter of the book, “Feeding Power,” Singer turns to the role of food in creating and projecting power.

As a holy city, Jerusalem was a destination for religious pilgrims, and the soup kitchen was established in part with their needs in mind. In the latter part of Sultan Suleiman’s reign, he was very deliberately establishing his image as a protector of pilgrims and pilgrimage routes, and Hurrem’s interest in establishing a Jerusalem soup kitchen was in part at least an effort to shape his image. There could be no more appropriate means of doing that than through the act of beneficence, a central component of Ottoman society.