Geography, Governance & God: The
Ottoman Difference?
Virginia H. Aksan, McMaster University
GTAL January 27, 2016
THE OTTOMANS in sum:
Lasted six hundred years (1300-1918)
Spanned three continents: Europe, Asia, Africa
Was a Muslim dynasty
Tolerated Christians and Jews
Inherited Byzantine, Roman and Turkic imperial
worldviews
 Ruled Armenians, Kurds, Turks, Arabs, Greeks,
Bulgarians, Albanians, Macedonians
 Produced a strikingly cosmopolitan world
civilization.
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Geography
Mediterranean
Geography - Eurasia
EURASIA
Turks to Ottomans 1300-1453
Turks – 700 AD
Warriors –
New technology
horse, bow &
arrow
Settle in Anatolia
ca. 1000 - Muslim
From Nomadic Warriors to Empire
House of Osman
 Mercenaries
 For Byzantium
 1326 Bursa
 First capital
Conquerors of Constantinople 1453
Hagia or St. Sophia (Aya Sophia)
Sultan Mehmet II, d. 1481
Trade Routes
Covered Bazaar
Constantinople “Gate of
Felicity” 500,000+ population by 1550 – 4,000 shops
Governance: The Golden Age
1500-1750
Sultan Süleyman
1520-1566
Topkapi Palace
Those Who Ruled 1500-1750
 I am Suleyman, sultan of sultans, sovereign
of sovereigns, distributor of crowns to the
lords of the surface of the globe.
 I am Suleyman, the Shadow of God on earth,
Commander of the Faithful, Servant and
Protector of the Holy Places.
 I am Suleyman, ruler of the two lands and the
two seas, sultan and padishah of the White
Sea and of the Black, of Rumelia, of Anatolia,
of Karamania, and of the land of Rum I am
Rum Kayseri. I am lord of Damascus, of
Aleppo, lord of Cairo, lord of Mecca, of
Medina, of Jerusalem, of all Arabia, of Yemen
and of many other lands which my noble
forefathers and illustrious ancestors (may
God brighten their tombs) conquered by the
force of their arms and which my august
majesty has subdued with my flaming sword
and my victorious blade.
Süleyman d. 1566
Those Who Ruled, cont.
 Sultan/slave imperial
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household – “kul”
Clientage/patronage
Devshirme – “gathering up”
– military & administration
Grand Vizier
Ulema
 Chief religious officer
 Judges, lawyers
 Schools, courts
Those Who Ruled, cont.
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Army – Janissaries “Moral
barometer” 20,000 in 1550
400,000 in 1800
 Gunpowder technology
Janissaries on
parade
Siege of Vienna 1529
Those Who Ruled, cont.
 Harem
 Valide Sultan – mother
 Haseki – favorites
 Self-contained female
society
 Eunuchs
Harem Women Feeding Pigeons in a
Courtyard Jean Leon Gerome, 19th c.
Entrance to Topkapı harem
Royal Patronage
Mecca Ottoman period
Dome of the Rock 700+ Jerusalem
New Mosque Istanbul 1600+
Those Who Were Ruled 1500-1750
 [Muslim ruling class – “orthodoxy” sunni – Hanafi –
the ulema]
 Muslim heterodoxy – sufism, shiism
 Non-Muslim minorities – Zimmis (Dhimmis)
patriarchs, priests, rabbis, heads of millets
 Merchant communities – local & foreign
 Trade pacts: capitulations
 Extra-territoriality – Ottoman/European
diplomacy
Court of Selim III 1789-1807
Those Who Were Ruled, cont.
A Place for Everybody and Everybody in his Place
(AND Properly Dressed)
MUSLIM “OTTOMAN”
NON-MUSLIM “OTTOMAN”
Non-taxed elite
Administrators, military
Janissaries
Ulema: Judges, lawyers
Turks Arabs
Converts from any ethnicity
Taxed and “tolerated”
No military service
Cultural mediators
Millet schools family courts
Merchants
Greeks
Armenians
Jews
Peasants, Muslim or non
Macedonia: 1911 Encyc brit
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1,300,000 Christians (almost exclusively
Orthodox), 800,000 Muslims, 75,000
Jews, a total population of ca. 2,200,000
for the whole of Macedonia
Bulgarians ca. 1,150,000, whereof,
1,000,000 Orthodox and 150,000
Muslims (called Pomaks)
Turks: ca. 500,000 (Muslims)
Greeks: ca. 250,000, whereof ca.
240,000 Orthodox and 14,000 Muslims
Albanians: ca. 120,000, whereof 10,000
Orthodox and 110,000 Muslims
Vlachs: ca. 90,000 Orthodox and 3,000
Muslims
Jews: ca. 75,000
Roma: ca. 50,000, whereof 35,000
Orthodox and 15,000 Muslims
God & the Ottoman “glue”
 Sultan as “just ruler” of Muslim Commonwealth
 Osman’s Dream – Universal rule
 The “Circle of Equity” – from peasant to army
 Re-distribution of wealth (taxation)
 Provincial households – kadi courts the
bureaucracy
 Chief religious officer - Judges, lawyers
 Court System – Kadi (judge) as empire-wide
morality – Hanafi law
 Nizam = Balance & Rigid Status
 Ambiguity of belonging
Circle of Equity
 There can be no royal authority
without the military
 There can be no military without
wealth
 The reaya (non-military classes)
produce the wealth
 The sultan keeps the reaya happy by
making justice reign
 Justice requires harmony in the
world
 The world is a garden, its walls are
the state
 The state’s prop is the religious law
 There is no support for religious law
without royal authority
So What Happened?
 Imperial over
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extension
Rise of European
States
European imperial
thrusts –
Britain/France
Eclipse of
Mediterranean trade
lost of economic power
Muslim rivalry &
revivalism 18th c+
Liberation & Nationalism
Suggested readings
 Caroline Finkel, Osman’s Dream, Basic Books, 2007.
 Daniel Goffman, The Ottomans and Early Modern Europe,
Cambridge, 2002
 Donald Quataert, The Ottoman Empire, 1700-1922,
Cambridge, 2006.
 Philip Mansel, Constantinople: City of the World’s Desire, St.
Martin’s Press, 1995.
 BBC The Ottomans: Europe’s Muslim Empire pt.1-3
https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x16ggk5_the-ottomans-europe-smuslim-emperors-ep-3-hd_lifestyle
 Ottoman Podcasts
http://www.ottomanhistorypodcast.com/p/episode-list.html