A Study of Social Network Analysis: The yan of Bursa in the Late 18th Century

A large number of researches have been conducted on the ayans who made their marks on 18thcentury Ottoman history. These researches have generally focused on some of the most powerful andinfluential ayan dynasties. However, the findings about the exact sources of ayan’s influence on societyand administration are still limited. This study suggests using social network analysis (SNA) in orderto expand the knowledge base about ayans as a social stratum. In this study, on two Bursa court registersbelonging to the late 18th century, in which ayans of Bursa were most effective, the method of socialnetwork analysis was carried out according to the debtor-creditor relation as a variable. In this paper,the results of this experiment are presented.