1970/01/01 by Gabriel Baer · 72 citations
Social Sciences · Psychology · #Islamic Studies and History #Guild #Turkish #Nothing #Unit (ring theory) #Point (geometry) #Political science #Political economy #Economy #Sociology #Economics #Psychology
paper · doi:10.1017/s0020743800023898
published in International Journal Middle East Studies 1(1), 28-50 (Cambridge University Press)
openalex publication_date 1970/01/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/05/21
A discussion of Turkish guild history becomes meaningless if it does not take as its point of departure that a guild is a professional organization. This means that a guild is neither an organization which is grouped according to professional criteria, nor just another name for groups of artisans or merchants about whose organization nothing definite is known. One may be justified in speaking about the existence of guilds if within a certain area all the people occupied in a branch of the urban economy constitute a unit which, at one and the same time, fulfils various purposes, such as economic, fiscal, administrative and social functions. A further condition is the existence of a framework of officers or functionaries chosen from among the members of such a unit and headed by a headman.