The Ottoman Empire
Introduction
The Ottoman Empire was the one of the largest and longest lasting Empires in history.
It was an empire inspired and sustained by Islam, and Islamic institutions.
It replaced the Byzantine Empire as the major power in the Eastern Mediterranean.
The Ottoman Empire reached its height under Suleiman the Magnificent (reigned 1520-66), when it expanded to cover the Balkans and Hungary, and reached the gates of Vienna.
The Empire began to decline after being defeated at the Battle of Lepanto (1571) and losing almost its entire navy. It declined further during the next centuries, and was effectively finished off by the First World War and the Balkan Wars.
One legacy of the Islamic Ottoman Empire is the robust secularism of modern Turkey.
At its peak it included:
Turkey, Egypt, Greece, Bulgaria, Romania, Macedonia, Hungary, Palestine, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, Parts of Arabia, Much of the coastal strip of North Africa
Why was the Empire successful?
The recipe for success
There were many reasons why the Ottoman Empire was so successful:
• Highly centralised
• Power was always transferred to a single person, and not split between rival princes
• The Ottoman Empire was successfully ruled by a single family for 7 centuries.
• State-run education system
• Religion was incorporated in the state structure, and the Sultan was regarded as "the protector of Islam".
• State-run judicial system
• Ruthless in dealing with local leaders
• Promotion to positions of power largely depended on merit
• Created alliances across political and racial groups
• United by Islamic ideology
• United by Islamic warrior code with ideal of increasing Muslim territory through Jihad
• United by Islamic organisational and administrative structures
• Highly pragmatic, taking the best ideas from other cultures and making them their own
• Encouraged loyalty from other faith groups
• Private power and wealth were controlled
• Very strong military
• Strong slave-based army
• Expert in developing gunpowder as a military tool
• Military ethos pervaded whole administration
Origin
After Baghdad fell to the Mongols, the Seljuks declared an independent Sultanate in east and central Asia Minor.
In 1301, Uthman, an Uzbek of the Ottoman clan, overthrew the Seljuk aristocracy and proclaimed himself the Sultan of Asia Minor.
Administration
The millet system
Non-Muslim communities were organised according to the millet system, which gave minority religious/ethnic/geographical communities a limited amount of power to regulate their own affairs - under the overall supremacy of the
The first Orthodox Christian millet was established in 1454. This brought Orthodox Christians into a single community under the leadership of the Patriarch who had considerable authority given to him by the Sultan. Armenian Christian, Jewish and other millets followed in due course.
Some millets paid tax to the state as dhimmis, while others were exempted because they were seen to be performing services of value to the state.
The devshirme system
Non-Muslims in parts of the empire had to hand over some of their children as a tax under the devshirme ('gathering') system introduced in the 14th century. Conquered Christian communities, especially in the Balkans, had to surrender twenty percent of their male children to the state. These children were converted to Islam and served as slaves.
The devshirme played a key role in Mehmet's conquest of Constantinople, and from then on regularly held very senior posts in the imperial administration.
The devshirme system continued until the end of the seventeenth century.
Fratricide
Sultan Selim introduced the policy of fratricide (the murder of brothers).
Under this system whenever a new Sultan ascended to the throne his brothers would be locked up. As soon as the Sultan had produced his first son the brothers (and their sons) would be killed. The new Sultan's sons would be then confined until their father's death and the whole system would start again.
This often meant that dozens of sons would be killed while only one would become Sultan.
In the later centuries of Ottoman rule, the brothers were imprisoned rather than executed.
Influences and Structure
Although the Ottoman Empire was widely influenced by the faiths and customs of the peoples it incorporated, the most significant influences came from Islam.
The ruling elite worked their way up the hierarchy of the state madrassahs (religious schools) and the palace schools. They were trained to be concerned with the needs of government and to be mindful of the restrictions of Islamic law.
In its structure the ruling elite reflected a world of order and hierarchy in which promotion and status were rewarded on merit. Thus birth and genealogy, aristocracy or tribe became almost irrelevant to success in the system. Only one post, that of the Sultan, was determined by birth.
Short-termism
Ottoman rulers had a very short-term policy. They rejected the idea of developing territory and investing in it for gain at some time in the future; land and peoples were exploited to the point of exhaustion and then more or less abandoned in favour of new ground.
This policy meant that the Ottoman Empire relied on continuous expansion for stability. If it did not grow, it was likely to collapse.
Decline
The power of the empire was waning by 1683 when the second and last attempt was made to conquer Vienna. It failed. Without the conquest of Europe and the acquisition of significant new wealth the Empire lost momentum and went into a slow decline.
Several other factors contributed to the Empire's decline:
• The European powers wanted to expand
• Economic problems
• Competition from trade from the Americas
• Competition from cheap products from India and the Far East
• Development of other trade routes
• Rising unemployment within the Empire
• Ottoman Empire became less centralised, and central control weakened
• Sultans being less severe in maintaining rigorous standards of integrity in the adminstration of the Empire
• Sultans becoming less sensitive to public opinion
• The low quality Sultans of the 17th and 18th centuries
• The ending of the execution of Sultan's sons and brothers, imprisoning them instead
• This apparently humane process led to men becoming Sultan after spending years in prison - not the best training for absolute power
Soon the very word Turk became synonymous with treachery and cruelty. This led Turks like Kemal Ataturk, who was born late in the nineteenth century, to be repelled by the Ottoman Turkish political system and the culture it had evolved. Seeing little but decay and corruption, he led the Turks to create a new modern identity.
The empire officially ended on the 1st November 1922, when the Ottoman sultanate was abolished and Turkey was declared a republic. The Ottoman caliphate continued as an institution, with greatly reduced authority, until it too was abolished on the 3rd March 1924.
