Organizing trade: The ahis and guilds of Anatolia

While guilds in the Ottoman Empire might never have had the same independence as their European counterparts, they still had an important role and also shared many characteristics with Sufi organizations The guild in Ottoman times can be defined as an association of craftsmen and tradesmen who dealt with the same products and who banded together for their mutual benefit. These guild members, who were known as ahis, are supposed to have taken their name from Ahi Evran, a 13th-century leather worker who fled to Anatolia to escape the Mongol invasion of the Middle East. He settled in Konya where he organized the leather workers.

The story of Ahi Evran was not written down until the 16th century, and this raises questions about its accuracy. Added to this is the serious debate going on among scholars as to just how the guild system (ahilik) arose in the Islamic world. There is general agreement that the first guilds were organized and given legal status by the Romans. Such guilds would then have existed in the Eastern Roman Empire or, as we more commonly call it today, the Byzantine Empire. They were governed by the state rather than by their own members. 

Merchants and tradesmen formed guilds but, as the Byzantines gradually lost their empire to Arab, Mongol and Turkish armies and the power of the Balkan states grew, only the guilds in Constantinople remained. It doesn't seem possible that Ahi Evran could have patterned his organization on the Byzantine guilds.

No one even knows the origin of the word ahi. Claude Cahen in his book, "Pre-Ottoman Turkey," attributes the rise of the ahi to Akhi Faraj Zanjani in northwestern Iran in the 11th century. Since the Turks of Central Asia would have traveled through this area, it would...