Amy Singer's Constructing Ottoman Beneficence is a study of the Hasseki Sultan soup kitchen in Jerusalem. The core of the book is an exhaustive study of the waqf endowment that established the foundation and records concerning the management of the institution. Singer also places her analysis of those records within a framework that explores larger social, economic, religious, and political issues of Ottoman charity.

The Hasseki Sultan imaret, or public kitchen, was established in the 1550s as a waqf endowment made by Hasseki Hurrem Sultan, the famous wife of the Ottoman Sultan Süleyman. Singer points out that an imaret of this kind was a uniquely Ottoman institution. Although there were waqf-funded charitable institutions before the Ottoman period, complexes with some combination of mosque, medrese, hospital, caravanserai, hostel, and soup kitchen soon became the major form of beneficence for Ottoman elites. The goal of the imaret was to provide soup and bread for the poor of the quarter as well as travelers, around 500 people daily. Food continues to be distributed from this site to this day.

Singer presents two chapters on the endowment itself. One chapter, based on a careful reading of the endowment deed, discusses the structure of the foundation. The other covers the day-to-day operations of the institution. Interspersed with these two chapters are three others that consider the larger questions of waqf making, women's philanthropy, and Ottoman food-related polices. Singer's goal in organizing her book in this way allows readers to consider the specifics of the institution and the general themes simultaneously.

The strongest chapters of the book are those dealing with the details of the founding and running of the imaret. The documentary evidence for the establishment of the waqf is rich, beginning with the endowment deed itself. This is, in fact, one of the reasons Singer initially chose to focus on this particular institution. Singer does an excellent job of fully analyzing the waqf deed. All aspects of the endowment are laid out in detail: the type and number of buildings in the complex, personnel from managers to assistant bakers, the lands whose revenues were designated to finance the operation, who was to be fed at the imaret, and even recipes for the soup and bread that were distributed. Singer successfully relates these details to larger issues of agriculture, land tenure, and markets.

The chapter on the functioning of the institution is equally well founded on diverse documentary sources. Singer presents a clear discussion of the difficulties the managers of the imaret had in carrying out the tasks set out for them in the waqf endowment. Practical demands often made it difficult to keep to the letter of the waqf deed. The most important part of the job was ensuring the financial health of the institution. Managers were deeply involved in both the revenue-producing lands attached to the waqf as well as the daily production of soup and bread. In this chapter Singer uses archival records to present a real sense of the work of the waqf managers, the difficulties they encountered, and a glimpse into their personalities as they endeavored to keep the institution running properly.

The success of the chapters on waqf making, Ottoman women's philanthropy, and food policies is a bit more mixed. The best chapter is that on waqf. The chapter begins with a superb, clear, and concise explanation and introduction to waqf. Singer then discusses waqf among the Ottomans, differentiating between those endowed by the imperial family and those by high-ranking members of the elite. The House of Osman, like Muslim dynasties before it, used waqf as a way to enhance the prestige of the rulers through pious beneficence. By the 16th-century foundation of the Hasseki Sultan imaret, endowing such large public structures had become a part of Ottoman imperial culture. Singer deftly shows the continuities in waqf making practice in the Ottoman period, as well as the specific Ottoman form of waqf.

Addressing the question of Ottoman women and philanthropy, Singer presents a fascinating discussion of the conflation of female donors of charitable institutions in Jerusalem. Many European visitors to the city claimed that the Hasseki Sultan imaret was actually founded by Saint Helena, the mother of the Byzantine emperor Constantine. Clearly, beneficence of this type was associated with elite women in a number of cultural contexts. Singer uses this conflation as the starting point of a general discussion of the connection between beneficence and women in Islamic history. She draws the various strands—Islamic, Byzantine, Turko–Mongol—together ending once again with Ottoman practices. This chapter, with its arguments on the gendering of charitable giving, raises interesting questions, but unlike the chapter on waqf, it stands more as a call for further research than a concise overview.

The weakest part of the book is the chapter on Ottoman food policies. Singer argues that food distribution, both feeding the poor at imarets and distributing food to the janissaries, was a key element in Ottoman policies of dynastic legitimization. Her conclusions are most likely valid, and her exposition on the role of imarets in this process is strong. Her discussion of provisioning Istanbul, the palace, and the army, however, although providing some context for the section on imarets, is rather cursory. This is also a topic that deserves more intense scrutiny.

The occasional weakness of these thematic chapters does not overly detract from the successful aspects of the book. Constructing Ottoman Beneficence is an admirable example of what a monograph can be. Singer has read a rich body of archival sources deeply, producing an excellent analysis of the Hasseki Sultan waqf and imaret. Building on that strong base, she then addresses larger conceptual questions inspired by her research. Her discussions of waqf, women, charity, food, and power raise even more interesting questions and suggest new avenues of research. If in her conclusions she sometimes falls short of her target, she should not be faulted for aiming high.