ABSTRACT
The conceptual framework of this study must be outlined before the analysis of the main parameters of Ottoman economic thought begins. The objective of this chapter is by no means a full description of the Ottoman socio-economic and political system. The concepts selected here have the purpose of facilitating the understanding of the rest of the text for (especially) non-Ottomanist readers. The meanings of the selected concepts from the sixteenth until the eighteenth century will be considered.
