The Egyptian army seized dead soldiers’ property as public miri money

Evidence

In February 1832 Islam Ağa, the adjutant-major of the 13th Infantry Regiment, died in the army hospital in Acre. On his death bed, he asked a friend of his, Hüseyin Ağa, the lieutenant-colonel of the 8th Infantry Regiment, to take charge of his funeral. He specifically requested him to sell his belongings, buy him a shroud and have a shaykh “recite the Koran on his soul.” Taking this to be his friend’s will, Hüseyin Ağa sold the property of his deceased friend so that he could meet the expenses of the funeral. Before the funeral had been conducted, however, the military headquarters in Syria intervened asking Mehmed Bey, the colonel of the 13th Infantry Regiment, to confiscate the deceased man’s property and sell it and hand in the money to the divan, since all his belongings, it was claimed, were miri money, i.e. public property. When he was informed about this, Hüseyin Ağa presented a petition to Ibrahim Pasha citing in it the reasons for his actions and requesting permission to fulfill his friend’s will. Ibrahim Pasha referred the petition to Ibrahim Yeğen. Ibrahim Yeğen “gave no answer.” … Seven months later the colonel of the 8th Regiment died of hepatitis also in the hospital in Acre. Five days before he died Ala Eddin Ağa gave his eighteen-year-old servant five kises (2,500 piasters) against a stamped certificate and in the presence of various witnesses. When informed about this the divan doubted the authenticity of the certificate and laid claim on the money saying that the property of dead soldiers and officers should revert to the army. Seeing that the boy had a stamped certificate, however, the divan decided to deal with the issue through the local religious judge (qāḍī) who said that according to the sharī‘a it was illegal to make a will that exceeded one-third of the value of the deceased’s property. The case was more complicated than that, moreover, since it was also discovered that besides cash, Ala Eddin Ağa had also left the boy his horse. The divan, however, decided to confiscate two-thirds of the cash and to take the horse to deliver it to the cavalry, which was in short supply of horses. To add to the young lad’s grievance he himself was to be conscripted into the army. He then presented a petition to Ibrahim Pasha saying in it that he was a freed slave of Ala Eddin Ağa and would like to go to Cairo to serve his master’s young children. Again, “he was silenced and was given no answer” (sükut olunup cevap verilmedi). — Khaled Fahmy, All the Pasha_s Men_ Mehmed Ali, his…, 1088

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the reader’s interest in how the Egyptian army’s institutions worked — the divan’s claim on all deceased soldiers’ property as a systemic practice.