While the Ottoman Empire was once thought to have entered aperiod of decline after the death of Suleiman the Magnificent, modern academic consensus posits that the empire continued to maintain a flexible and strong economy, society and military into much of the 18th century. The Ottomans suffered military defeats in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, culminating in theloss of territory. Withrising nationalism, a number of new states emerged in the Balkans. FollowingTanzimat reforms over the course of the 19th century, the Ottoman state became more powerful and organized internally. In the1876 revolution, the Ottoman Empire attemptedconstitutional monarchy, before reverting to a royalist dictatorship underAbdul Hamid II, following theGreat Eastern Crisis.
The Turkish word for "Ottoman" (Osmanlı) originally referred to the tribal followers of Osman in the fourteenth century. The word subsequently came to be used to refer to the empire's military-administrative elite. In contrast, the term "Turk" (Türk) was used to refer to the Anatolian peasant and tribal population and was seen as a disparaging term when applied to urban, educated individuals.[31]: 26 [32] In theearly modern period, an educated, urban-dwelling Turkish speaker who was not a member of the military-administrative class typically referred to themselves neither as anOsmanlı nor as aTürk, but rather as aRūmī (رومى), or "Roman", meaning an inhabitant of the territory of the formerByzantine Empire in the Balkans and Anatolia. The termRūmī was also used to refer to Turkish speakers by the other Muslim peoples of the empire and beyond.[33]: 11
In Western Europe, the names Ottoman Empire, Turkish Empire and Turkey were often used interchangeably, with Turkey being increasingly favoured both in formal and informal situations. This dichotomy was officially ended in 1920–1923, when the newly establishedAnkara-basedTurkish government chose Turkey as the sole official name. At present, most scholarly historians avoid the terms "Turkey", "Turks", and "Turkish" when referring to the Ottomans, due to the empire's multinational character.[34]
As theRum Sultanate declined in the 13th century,Anatolia was divided into a patchwork of independent Turkish principalities known as theAnatolian Beyliks. One of these, in the region ofBithynia on the frontier of theByzantine Empire, was led by the Turkish[35] tribal leaderOsman I (d. 1323/4),[36] a figure of obscure origins from whom the name Ottoman is derived.[37]: 444 Osman's early followers consisted of Turkish tribal groups and Byzantine renegades, with many but not all converts to Islam.[38]: 59 [39]: 127 Osman extended control of his principality by conquering Byzantine towns along theSakarya River. A Byzantine defeat at theBattle of Bapheus in 1302 contributed to Osman's rise. It is not well understood how the early Ottomans came to dominate their neighbors, due to the lack of sources surviving. TheGhaza thesis popular during the 20th century credited their success to rallying religious warriors to fight for them in the name ofIslam, but it is no longer generally accepted. No other hypothesis has attracted broad acceptance.[40]: 5, 10 [41]: 104
In the century after Osman I, Ottoman rule had begun to extend over Anatolia and theBalkans. The earliest conflicts began during theByzantine–Ottoman wars, waged in Anatolia in the late 13th century before entering Europe in the mid-14th century, followed by theBulgarian–Ottoman wars and theSerbian–Ottoman wars in the mid-14th century. Much of this period was characterised byOttoman expansion into the Balkans. Osman's son,Orhan, captured the northwestern Anatolian city ofBursa in 1326, making it the new capital and supplanting Byzantine control in the region. The important port ofThessaloniki was captured from theVenetians in 1387 and sacked. The Ottoman victory inKosovo in 1389 effectively marked theend of Serbian power in the region, paving the way for Ottoman expansion into Europe.[42]: 95–96 TheBattle of Nicopolis for theBulgarianTsardom of Vidin in 1396, regarded as the last large-scalecrusade of theMiddle Ages, failed to stop the advance of the victorious Ottomans.[43]
As the Turks expanded into the Balkans, theconquest of Constantinople became a crucial objective. The Ottomans had already wrested control of nearly all former Byzantine lands surrounding the city, but the strong defense of Constantinople's strategic position on theBosporus Strait made it difficult to conquer. In 1402, the Byzantines were temporarily relieved when theTurco-Mongol leaderTimur, founder of theTimurid Empire, invaded Ottoman Anatolia from the east. In theBattle of Ankara in 1402, Timur defeated Ottoman forces and took SultanBayezid I as prisoner, throwing the empire into disorder. Theensuing civil war lasted from 1402 to 1413 as Bayezid's sons fought over succession. It ended whenMehmed I emerged as the sultan and restored Ottoman power.[44]: 363
The Balkan territories lost by the Ottomans after 1402, including Thessaloniki, Macedonia, and Kosovo, were later recovered byMurad II between the 1430s and 1450s. On 10 November 1444, Murad repelled theCrusade of Varna by defeating the Hungarian, Polish, andWallachian armies underWładysław III of Poland andJohn Hunyadi at theBattle of Varna, although Albanians underSkanderbeg continued to resist. Four years later, John Hunyadi prepared another army of Hungarian and Wallachian forces to attack the Turks, but was again defeated at theSecond Battle of Kosovo in 1448.[45]: 29
According to modern historiography, there is a direct connection between the rapid Ottoman military advance and the consequences of theBlack Death from the mid-fourteenth century onwards. Byzantine territories, where the initial Ottoman conquests were carried out, were exhausted demographically and militarily due to the plague, which facilitated Ottoman expansion. In addition, slave hunting was the main economic driving force behind Ottoman conquest. Some 21st-century authors re-periodize conquest of the Balkans into theakıncı phase, which spanned 8 to 13 decades, characterized by continuous slave hunting and destruction, followed by administrative integration into the Empire.[46][47][48][49]
The son of Murad II,Mehmed the Conqueror, reorganized both state and military, and on 29 May 1453 conqueredConstantinople, ending the Byzantine Empire.[50] Mehmed allowed theEastern Orthodox Church to maintain its autonomy and land in exchange for accepting Ottoman authority.[51] Due to tension between the states of western Europe and the later Byzantine Empire, most of the Orthodox population accepted Ottoman rule, as preferable to Venetian rule.[51] Albanian resistance was a major obstacle to Ottoman expansion on the Italian peninsula.[52]
In the 15th and 16th centuries, the Ottoman Empire entered aperiod of expansion. The Empire prospered under the rule of a line of committed and effectiveSultans. It flourished economically due to its control of the major overland trade routes between Europe and Asia.[53]: 111 [n]
In 1539, a 60,000-strong Ottoman army besieged theSpanish garrison ofCastelnuovo on theAdriatic coast; the successful siege cost the Ottomans 8,000 casualties,[63] butVenice agreed to terms in 1540, surrendering most of its empire in theAegean and theMorea.France and the Ottoman Empire, united by mutual opposition toHabsburg rule,[64] became allies. The French conquests ofNice (1543) andCorsica (1553) occurred as a joint venture between French kingFrancis I and Suleiman, and were commanded by the Ottoman admiralsHayreddin Barbarossa andDragut.[65] France supported the Ottomans with an artillery unit during the 1543 Ottomanconquest of Esztergom in northern Hungary. After further advances by the Turks, the Habsburg rulerFerdinand officially recognized Ottoman ascendancy in Hungary in 1547. Suleiman died of natural causes during thesiege of Szigetvár in 1566. Following his death, the Ottomans were said to be declining, although this has been rejected by many scholars.[66] By the end of Suleiman's reign, the Empire spanned approximately 877,888 sq mi (2,273,720 km2), extending over three continents.[67]: 545
The Empire became a dominant naval force, controlling much of theMediterranean Sea.[68]: 61 The Empire was now a major part of European politics. The Ottomans became involved in multi-continental religious wars when Spain and Portugal were united under theIberian Union. The Ottomans were holders of the Caliph title, meaning they were the leaders of Muslims worldwide. The Iberians were leaders of the Christian crusaders, and so the two fought in a worldwide conflict. There were zones of operations in the Mediterranean[69] andIndian Ocean,[70] where Iberians circumnavigated Africa to reach India and, on their way, wage war upon the Ottomans and their local Muslim allies. Likewise, the Iberians passed through newly-ChristianizedLatin America andhad sent expeditions that traversed the Pacific to Christianize the formerly Muslim Philippines and use it as a base to attack the Muslims in theFar East.[71] In this case, the Ottomans sent armies to aid its easternmost vassal and territory, theSultanate of Aceh in Southeast Asia.[72]: 84 [73]
During the 1600s, the world conflict between the Ottoman Caliphate and Iberian Union was a stalemate sinceboth were at similar population, technology and economic levels. Nevertheless, the success of the Ottoman political and military establishment was compared to theRoman Empire, despite the difference in size, by the likes of contemporary Italian scholarFrancesco Sansovino and French political philosopherJean Bodin.[74]
In the second half of the sixteenth century, the Ottoman Empire came under increasing strain from inflation and the rapidly rising costs of warfare that were impacting both Europe and the Middle East.[77] These pressures led to a series of crises around the year 1600, placing great strain upon the Ottoman system of government.[78]: 413–414 The empire underwent a series of transformations of its political and military institutions in response to these challenges, enabling it to successfully adapt to the new conditions of the seventeenth century and remain powerful, both militarily and economically.[66][79]: 10 Historians of the mid-twentieth century once characterised this period as one of stagnation and decline, but this view is now rejected by the majority of academics.[66]
The discovery of new maritime trade routes by Western European states allowed them to avoid the Ottoman trade monopoly. ThePortuguese discovery of theCape of Good Hope in 1488 initiateda series of Ottoman-Portuguese naval wars in theIndian Ocean throughout the 16th century. Despite the growing European presence in the Indian Ocean, Ottoman trade with the east continued to flourish. Cairo, in particular, benefitted from the rise of Yemeni coffee as a popular consumer commodity. As coffeehouses appeared in cities and towns across the empire, Cairo developed into a major center for its trade, contributing to its continued prosperity throughout the seventeenth and much of the eighteenth century.[80]: 507–508
UnderIvan IV (1533–1584), theTsardom of Russia expanded into the Volga and Caspian regions at the expense of the Tatar khanates. In 1571, the Crimean khanDevlet I Giray, commanded by the Ottomans,burned Moscow.[81] The next year, the invasion was repeated but repelled at theBattle of Molodi. The Ottoman Empire continued to invade Eastern Europe in a series ofslave raids,[82] and remained a significant power in Eastern Europe until the end of the 17th century.[83]
The Ottomans decided to conquerVenetian Cyprus and on 22 July 1570, Nicosia was besieged; 50,000 Christians died, and 180,000 were enslaved.[84]: 67 On 15 September 1570, the Ottoman cavalry appeared before the last Venetian stronghold in Cyprus, Famagusta. The Venetian defenders held out for 11 months against a force that at its peak numbered 200,000 men with 145 cannons; 163,000 cannonballs struck the walls of Famagusta before it fell to the Ottomans in August 1571. TheSiege of Famagusta claimed 50,000 Ottoman casualties.[85]: 328 Meanwhile, theHoly League consisting of mostly Spanish and Venetian fleets won a victory over the Ottoman fleet at theBattle of Lepanto (1571), off southwestern Greece; Catholic forces killed over 30,000 Turks and destroyed 200 of their ships.[86]: 24 It was a startling, if mostly symbolic,[87] blow to the image of Ottoman invincibility, an image which the victory of the Knights of Malta over the Ottoman invaders in the 1565siege of Malta had recently set about eroding.[88] The battle was far more damaging to the Ottoman navy in sapping experienced manpower than the loss of ships, which were rapidly replaced.[89]: 53 The Ottoman navy recovered quickly, persuading Venice to sign a peace treaty in 1573, allowing the Ottomans to expand and consolidate their position in North Africa.[90]
By contrast, the Habsburg frontier had settled somewhat, a stalemate caused by a stiffening of the Habsburg defenses.[91] TheLong Turkish War against Habsburg Austria (1593–1606) created the need for greater numbers of Ottoman infantry equipped with firearms, resulting in a relaxation of recruitment policy. This contributed to problems of indiscipline and outright rebelliousness within the corps, which were never fully solved.[92][obsolete source] Irregular sharpshooters (Sekban) were also recruited, and on demobilisation turned tobrigandage in theCelali rebellions (1590–1610), which engendered widespread anarchy inAnatolia in the late 16th and early 17th centuries.[93]: 24 With the Empire's population reaching 30 million people by 1600, the shortage of land placed further pressure on the government.[94][obsolete source] In spite of these problems, the Ottoman state remained strong, and its army did not collapse or suffer crushing defeats. The only exceptions were campaigns against theSafavid dynasty of Persia, where many of the Ottoman eastern provinces were lost, some permanently. This1603–1618 war eventually resulted in theTreaty of Nasuh Pasha, which ceded the entire Caucasus, except westernmost Georgia, back into the possession ofSafavid Iran.[95] The treaty ending theCretan War cost Venice much ofDalmatia, its Aegean island possessions, andCrete. (Losses from the war totalled 30,985 Venetian soldiers and 118,754 Turkish soldiers.)[96]: 33
During his brief majority reign,Murad IV (1623–1640) reasserted central authority and recapturedIraq (1639) from the Safavids.[97] The resultingTreaty of Zuhab of that same year decisively divided the Caucasus and adjacent regions between the two neighbouring empires as it had already been defined in the 1555 Peace of Amasya.[98][99]
TheSultanate of Women (1533–1656) was a period in which the mothers of young sultans exercised power on behalf of their sons. The most prominent women of this period wereKösem Sultan and her daughter-in-lawTurhan Hatice, whose political rivalry culminated in Kösem's murder in 1651.[100] During theKöprülü era (1656–1703), effective control of the Empire was exercised by a sequence ofgrand viziers from the Köprülü family. The Köprülü Vizierate saw renewed military success with authority restored in Transylvania, the conquest ofCrete completed in 1669, and expansion intoPolish southern Ukraine, with the strongholds ofKhotyn, andKamianets-Podilskyi and the territory ofPodolia ceding to Ottoman control in 1676.[101]
This period of renewed assertiveness came to a calamitous end in 1683 when Grand VizierKara Mustafa Pasha led a huge army to attempt a second Ottoman siege ofVienna in theGreat Turkish War of 1683–1699. The final assault being fatally delayed, the Ottoman forces were swept away by allied Habsburg, German, and Polish forces spearheaded by the Polish kingJohn III Sobieski at theBattle of Vienna. The alliance of theHoly League pressed home the advantage of the defeat at Vienna, culminating in theTreaty of Karlowitz (26 January 1699), which ended the Great Turkish War.[102] The Ottomans surrendered control of significant territories, many permanently.[103]Mustafa II (1695–1703) led the counterattack of 1695–1696 against the Habsburgs in Hungary, but was undone at the disastrous defeat atZenta (in modern Serbia), 11 September 1697.[104]
Military defeats
Aside from the loss of theBanat and the temporary loss ofBelgrade (1717–1739), the Ottoman border on theDanube andSava remained stable during the eighteenth century.Russian expansion, however, presented a large and growing threat.[105] Accordingly, KingCharles XII of Sweden was welcomed as an ally in the Ottoman Empire following his defeat by the Russians at theBattle of Poltava of 1709 in central Ukraine (part of theGreat Northern War of 1700–1721).[105] Charles XII persuaded the Ottoman SultanAhmed III to declare war on Russia, which resulted in an Ottoman victory in thePruth River Campaign of 1710–1711, in Moldavia.[106]
After theAustro-Turkish War, theTreaty of Passarowitz confirmed the loss of the Banat, Serbia, and"Little Walachia" (Oltenia) to Austria. The Treaty also revealed that the Ottoman Empire was on the defensive and unlikely to present any further aggression in Europe.[107] TheAustro-Russian–Turkish War (1735–1739), which was ended by theTreaty of Belgrade in 1739, resulted in the Ottoman recovery of northernBosnia,Habsburg Serbia (including Belgrade),Oltenia and the southern parts of theBanat of Temeswar; but the Empire lost the port ofAzov, north of the Crimean Peninsula, to the Russians. After this treaty the Ottoman Empire was able to enjoy a generation of peace in Europe, as Austria and Russia were forced to deal with the rise ofPrussia.[108]
Educational and technological reforms came about, including the establishment of higher education institutions such as theIstanbul Technical University.[109] In 1734 an artillery school was established to impart Western-style artillery methods, but the Islamic clergy successfully objected under the grounds oftheodicy.[110] In 1754 the artillery school was reopened on a semi-secret basis.[110] In 1726,Ibrahim Muteferrika convinced the Grand VizierNevşehirli Damat Ibrahim Pasha, theGrand Mufti, and the clergy on the efficiency of the printing press, and Muteferrika was later granted by Sultan Ahmed III permission to publish non-religious books (despite opposition from somecalligraphers and religious leaders).[111] Muteferrika's press published its first book in 1729 and, by 1743, issued 17 works in 23 volumes, each having between 500 and 1,000 copies.[111][112]
In North Africa, Spainconquered Oran from the autonomousDeylik of Algiers. TheBey of Oran received an army from Algiers, but it failed to recaptureOran; the siege caused the deaths of 1,500 Spaniards, and even more Algerians. The Spanish also massacred many Muslim soldiers.[113] In 1792, Spain abandoned Oran, selling it to the Deylik of Algiers.
Ottoman troops attempting to halt the advancing Russians during theSiege of Ochakov in 1788
In 1768 Russian-backed UkrainianHaidamakas, pursuing Polish confederates, enteredBalta, an Ottoman-controlled town on the border of Bessarabia in Ukraine, massacred its citizens, and burned the town to the ground. This action provoked the Ottoman Empire into theRusso-Turkish War of 1768–1774. TheTreaty of Küçük Kaynarca of 1774 ended the war and provided freedom of worship for the Christian citizens of the Ottoman-controlled provinces of Wallachia and Moldavia.[114] By the late 18th century, after a number of defeats in the wars with Russia, some people in the Ottoman Empire began to conclude that the reforms ofPeter the Great had given the Russians an edge, and the Ottomans would have to keep up with Western technology in order to avoid further defeats.[110]
Selim III (1789–1807) made the first major attempts tomodernise the army, but his reforms were hampered by the religious leadership and theJanissary corps. Jealous of their privileges and firmly opposed to change, the Janissaryrevolted. Selim's efforts cost him his throne and his life, but were resolved in spectacular and bloody fashion by his successor, the dynamicMahmud II, whoeliminated the Janissary corps in 1826.
TheSerbian revolution (1804–1815) marked the beginning of an era ofnational awakening in theBalkans during theEastern Question. In 1811, the fundamentalist Wahhabis of Arabia, led by the al-Saud family, revolted against the Ottomans. Unable to defeat the Wahhabi rebels, the Sublime Porte hadMuhammad Ali Pasha ofKavala, thevali (governor) of theEyalet of Egypt, tasked with retaking Arabia, which ended with the destruction of theEmirate of Diriyah in 1818. Thesuzerainty of Serbia as a hereditary monarchy under its owndynasty was acknowledgedde jure in 1830.[115][116] In 1821, theGreeksdeclared war on the Sultan. A rebellion that originated in Moldavia as a diversion was followed by the main revolution in thePeloponnese, which, along with the northern part of theGulf of Corinth, became the first parts of the Ottoman Empire to achieve independence (in 1829). In 1830, the French invaded theDeylik of Algiers.The campaign that took 21 days, resulted in over 5,000 Algerian military casualties,[117] and about 2,600 French ones.[117][118] Before the French invasion the total population of Algeria was most likely between 3,000,000 and 5,000,000.[119] By 1873, the population of Algeria (excluding several hundred thousand newly arrived French settlers) had decreased to 2,172,000.[120] In 1831,Muhammad Ali of Egypt revolted against SultanMahmud II due to the latter's refusal to grant him the governorships ofGreater Syria andCrete, which the Sultan had promised him in exchange for sending military assistance to put down theGreek revolt (1821–1829) that ultimately ended with the formalindependence of Greece in 1830. It was a costly enterprise for Muhammad Ali, who had lost his fleet at theBattle of Navarino in 1827. Thus began the firstEgyptian–Ottoman War (1831–1833), during which the French-trained army of Muhammad Ali, under the command of his sonIbrahim Pasha, defeated the Ottoman Army as it marched intoAnatolia, reaching the city ofKütahya within 320 km (200 mi) of the capital, Constantinople.[121]: 95 In desperation, SultanMahmud II appealed to the empire's traditional arch-rival Russia for help, asking EmperorNicholas I to send an expeditionary force to assist him.[121]: 96 In return for signing theTreaty of Hünkâr İskelesi, the Russians sent the expeditionary force which deterred Ibrahim Pasha from marching any further towards Constantinople.[121]: 96 Under the terms of theConvention of Kütahya, signed on 5 May 1833, Muhammad Ali agreed to abandon his campaign against the Sultan, in exchange for which he was made thevali (governor) of thevilayets (provinces) ofCrete,Aleppo,Tripoli,Damascus andSidon (the latter four comprising modernSyria andLebanon), and given the right to collect taxes inAdana.[121]: 96 Had it not been for the Russian intervention, SultanMahmud II could have faced the risk of being overthrown and Muhammad Ali could have even become the new Sultan. These events marked the beginning of a recurring pattern where the Sublime Porte needed the help of foreign powers to protect itself.[121]: 95–96
In 1839, theSublime Porte attempted to take back what it lost to thede facto autonomous, butde jure still OttomanEyalet of Egypt, but its forces were initially defeated, which led to theOriental Crisis of 1840. Muhammad Ali had close relations withFrance, and the prospect of him becoming the Sultan of Egypt was widely viewed as putting the entireLevant into the French sphere of influence.[121]: 96 As the Sublime Porte had proved itself incapable of defeating Muhammad Ali,[122][123] theBritish Empire andAustrian Empire provided military assistance, and the secondEgyptian–Ottoman War (1839–1841) ended with Ottoman victory and the restoration of Ottoman suzerainty overEgypt Eyalet and theLevant.[121]: 96
During theTanzimat period (1839–1876), the government's series of constitutional reforms led to a fairly modernconscripted army, banking system reforms, the decriminalization of homosexuality, the replacement of religious law with secular law,[124] and guilds with modern factories. The Ottoman Ministry of Post was established in Istanbul in 1840. American inventorSamuel Morse received an Ottoman patent for the telegraph in 1847, issued by SultanAbdülmecid, who personally tested the invention.[125] The reformist period peaked with the Constitution, called theKanûn-u Esâsî. The empire'sFirst Constitutional era was short-lived. The parliament survived for only two years before the sultan suspended it.
The empire's Christian population, owing to their higher educational levels, started to pull ahead of the Muslim majority, leading to much resentment.[126] In 1861, there were 571 primary and 94 secondary schools for Ottoman Christians, with 140,000 pupils in total, a figure that vastly exceeded the number of Muslim children in school at the time, who were further hindered by the amount of time spent learning Arabic and Islamic theology.[126] Author Norman Stone suggests that the Arabic alphabet, in which Turkish was writtenuntil 1928, was ill-suited to reflect the sounds of Turkish (which is a Turkic as opposed to Semitic language), which imposed further difficulty on Turkish children.[126] In turn, Christians' higher educational levels allowed them to play a larger role in the economy, with the rise in prominence of groups such as theSursock family indicative of this.[127][126] In 1911, of the 654 wholesale companies in Istanbul, 528 were owned by ethnic Greeks.[126] In many cases, Christians and Jews gained protection from European consuls and citizenship, meaning they were protected from Ottoman law and not subject to the same economic regulations as their Muslim counterparts.[128]
TheCrimean War (1853–1856) was part of a long-running contest between the major European powers for influence over territories of the declining Ottoman Empire. The financial burden of the war led the Ottoman state to issueforeign loans amounting to 5million pounds sterling on 4 August 1854.[129]: 32 [130]: 71 The war caused an exodus of theCrimean Tatars, about 200,000 of whom moved to the Ottoman Empire in continuing waves of emigration.[131]: 79–108 Toward the end of theCaucasian Wars, 90% of theCircassians wereethnically cleansed[132] and exiled from their homelands in the Caucasus, fleeing to the Ottoman Empire,[133] resulting in the settlement of 500,000 to 700,000 Circassians in the Ottoman Empire.[134] Crimean Tatar refugees in the late 19th century played an especially notable role in seeking to modernise Ottoman education and in first promoting bothPan-Turkism and a sense of Turkish nationalism.[135]
In this period, the Ottoman Empire spent only small amounts of public funds on education; for example, in 1860–1861 only 0.2% of the total budget was invested in education.[136]: 50 As the Ottoman state attempted to modernize its infrastructure and army in response to outside threats, it opened itself up to a different kind of threat: that of creditors. As the historian Eugene Rogan has written, "the single greatest threat to the independence of the Middle East" in the 19th century "was not the armies of Europe but its banks".[137] The Ottoman state, which had begun taking on debt with the Crimean War, was forced to declare bankruptcy in 1875.[138] By 1881, the Ottoman Empire agreed to have its debt controlled by theOttoman Public Debt Administration, a council of European men with presidency alternating between France and Britain. The body controlled swaths of the Ottoman economy, and used its position to ensure that European capital continued to penetrate the empire, often to the detriment of local Ottoman interests.[138]
The Ottomanbashi-bazouks suppressed theBulgarian uprising of 1876, massacring up to 100,000 people in the process.[139]: 139 TheRusso-Turkish War (1877–1878) ended with a decisive victory for Russia. As a result, Ottoman holdings in Europe declined sharply:Bulgaria was established as an independent principality inside the Ottoman Empire;Romania achieved full independence; andSerbia andMontenegro finally gained complete independence, but with smaller territories. In 1878,Austria-Hungary unilaterally occupied the Ottoman provinces ofBosnia-Herzegovina andNovi Pazar.
British Prime MinisterBenjamin Disraeli advocated restoring the Ottoman territories on the Balkan Peninsula during theCongress of Berlin, and in return, Britain assumed the administration ofCyprus in 1878.[140]: 228–254 Britain later sent troops toEgypt in 1882 to put down theUrabi Revolt (SultanAbdul Hamid II was too paranoid to mobilize his own army, fearing this would result in a coup d'état), effectively gaining control in both territories. Abdul Hamid II was so fearful of a coup that he did not allow his army to conduct war games, lest this serve as cover for a coup, but he did see the need for military mobilization. In 1883, a German military mission under General BaronColmar von der Goltz arrived to train the Ottoman Army, leading to the so-called "Goltz generation" of German-trained officers, who played a notable role in the politics of the empire's last years.[141]: 24
From 1894 to 1896, between 100,000 and 300,000 Armenians living throughout the empire were killed in what became known as theHamidian massacres.[142]: 42
In 1897 the population was 19million, of whom 14million (74%) were Muslim. An additional 20million lived in provinces that remained under the sultan's nominal suzerainty but were entirely outside his actual power. One by one the Porte lost nominal authority. They included Egypt, Tunisia, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Bosnia-Herzegovina, and Lebanon.[143]
As the Ottoman Empire gradually shrank, 7–9million Muslims from its former territories in the Caucasus,Crimea, Balkans, and theMediterranean islands migrated to Anatolia andEastern Thrace.[144][145][146][147] After the Empire lost theFirst Balkan War (1912–1913), it lost all itsBalkan territories exceptEast Thrace (European Turkey). This resulted in around 400,000 Muslims fleeing with the retreating Ottoman armies (with many dying fromcholera brought by the soldiers), and 400,000 non-Muslims fled territory still under Ottoman rule.[148]Justin McCarthy estimates that from 1821 to 1922, 5.5million Muslims died in southeastern Europe, with the expulsion of 5million.[149][150][151]
The Ottomans successfully defended theDardanelles strait during theGallipoli campaign (1915–1916) and achieved initial victories against British forces in the first two years of theMesopotamian campaign, such as theSiege of Kut (1915–1916); but theArab Revolt (1916–1918) turned the tide against the Ottomans in the Middle East. In theCaucasus campaign, however, the Russian forces had the upper hand from the beginning, especially after theBattle of Sarikamish (1914–1915). Russian forces advanced into northeasternAnatolia and controlled the major cities there until retreating from World War I with theTreaty of Brest-Litovsk following theRussian Revolution in 1917.
In 1915 the Ottoman government and Kurdish tribes in the region started the extermination of its ethnic Armenian population, resulting in the deaths of up to 1.5million Armenians in theArmenian genocide.[160][161][162] The genocide was carried out during and after World War I and implemented in two phases: the wholesale killing of the able-bodied male population through massacre and subjection of army conscripts to forced labour, followed by the deportation of women, children, the elderly and infirm ondeath marches leading to theSyrian desert. Driven forward by military escorts, the deportees were deprived of food and water and subjected to periodic robbery,rape, and systematic massacre.[163][164] Large-scale massacres were also committed against the Empire'sGreek andAssyrian minorities as part of the same campaign of ethnic cleansing.[165]
TheArab Revolt began in 1916 with British support. It turned the tide against the Ottomans on the Middle Eastern front, where they seemed to have the upper hand during the first two years of the war. On the basis of theMcMahon–Hussein Correspondence, an agreement between the British government andHussein bin Ali, Sharif of Mecca, the revolt was officially initiated at Mecca on 10 June 1916.[o] The Arab nationalist goal was to create a single unified and independentArab state stretching fromAleppo, Syria, toAden, Yemen, which the British promised to recognise.
Following the terms of the 1916Sykes–Picot Agreement, the British and French later partitioned the Middle East intomandate territories. There was no unified Arab state, much to Arab nationalists' anger. Palestine, Iraq, Lebanon and Syria became British and French mandates.[167]
Treaty of Sèvres and Turkish War of Independence
Mehmed VI, the last Sultan of the Ottoman Empire, leaving the country after the abolition of the Ottoman sultanate, 17 November 1922
Several historians, such as British historianEdward Gibbon and the Greek historianDimitri Kitsikis, have argued that after the fall of Constantinople, the Ottoman state took over the machinery of the Byzantine (Roman) state and that the Ottoman Empire was in essence a continuation of the Byzantine Empire under aTurkishMuslim guise.[170] The American historianSperos Vryonis writes that the Ottoman state centered on "a Byzantine-Balkan base with a veneer of the Turkish language and the Islamic religion".[171] Kitsikis and the American historianHeath Lowry posit that the early Ottoman state was a predatory confederacy open to both Byzantine Christians and Turkish Muslims whose primary goal was attaining booty and slaves, rather than spreading Islam, and that Islam only later became the empire's primary characteristic.[172][173][174] Other historians have followed the lead of the Austrian historianPaul Wittek, who emphasizes the early Ottoman state's Islamic character, seeing it as a "jihad state" dedicated to expanding theMuslim world.[171] Many historians led in 1937 by the Turkish historianMehmet Fuat Köprülü championed theGhaza thesis, according to which the early Ottoman state was a continuation of the way of life of the nomadicTurkic tribes who had come from East Asia to Anatolia via Central Asia and the Middle East on a much larger scale. They argued that the most important cultural influences on the Ottoman state came fromPersia.[175]
The British historianNorman Stone suggests many continuities between the Byzantine and Ottoman empires, such as that thezeugarion tax of Byzantium became the OttomanResm-i çift tax, that thepronoia land-holding system that linked the amount of land one owned with one's ability to raise cavalry became the Ottomantimar system, and that the Ottoman land measurement thedönüm was the same as the Byzantinestremma. Stone also argues that although Sunni Islam was the state religion, the Ottoman state supported and controlled theEastern Orthodox Church, which in return for accepting that control became the Ottoman Empire's largest land-holder. Despite the similarities, Stone argues that a crucial difference is that the land grants under thetimar system were not hereditary at first. Even after they became inheritable, land ownership in the Ottoman Empire remained highly insecure, and the sultan revoked land grants whenever he wished. Stone argued this insecurity in land tenure strongly discouragedTimariots from seeking long-term development of their land, and instead led them to adopt a strategy of short-term exploitation, which had deleterious effects on the Ottoman economy.[176]
Before the reforms of the 19th and 20th centuries, thestate organisation of the Ottoman Empire was a system with two main dimensions, the military administration, and the civil administration. The Sultan was in the highest position in the system. The civil system was based on local administrative units based on the region's characteristics. The state had control over the clergy. Certain pre-Islamic Turkish traditions that had survived the adoption of administrative and legal practices from IslamicIran remained important in Ottoman administrative circles.[179] According to Ottoman understanding, the state's primary responsibility was to defend and extend the land of the Muslims and to ensure security and harmony within its borders in the overarching context oforthodox Islamic practice and dynastic sovereignty.[180]
The Ottoman Empire, or as a dynastic institution, the House of Osman, was unprecedented and unequaled in the Islamic world for its size and duration.[181] In Europe, only theHouse of Habsburg had a similarly unbroken line of sovereigns (kings/emperors) from the same family who ruled for so long, and during the same period, between the late 13th and early 20th centuries. The Ottoman dynasty was Turkish in origin. On eleven occasions, the sultan was deposed (replaced by another sultan of the Ottoman dynasty, who were either the former sultan's brother, son or nephew) because he was perceived by his enemies as a threat to the state. There were only two attempts in Ottoman history to unseat the ruling Ottoman dynasty, both failures, which suggests a political system that for an extended period was able to manage its revolutions without unnecessary instability.[180] As such, the last Ottoman sultan Mehmed VI (r. 1918–1922) was adirect patrilineal (male-line) descendant of the first Ottoman sultanOsman I (d. 1323/4), which was unparalleled in both Europe (e.g., the male line of the House of Habsburg became extinct in 1740) and in the Islamic world. The primary purpose of theImperial Harem was to ensure the birth of male heirs to the Ottoman throne and secure the continuation of the direct patrilineal (male-line) power of the Ottoman sultans in the future generations.
Ambassadors at the Topkapı Palace
The highest position in Islam,caliph, was claimed by the sultans starting withSelim I,[18] which was established as the Ottoman Caliphate. The Ottoman sultan,pâdişâh or "lord of kings", served as the Empire's sole regent and was considered to be the embodiment of its government, though he did not always exercise complete control. The Imperial Harem was one of the most important powers of the Ottoman court. It was ruled by thevalide sultan. On occasion, the valide sultan became involved in state politics. For a time, the women of the Harem effectively controlled the state in what was termed the "Sultanate of Women". New sultans were always chosen from the sons of the previous sultan.[dubious –discuss] The strong educational system of thepalace school was geared towards eliminating the unfit potential heirs and establishing support among the ruling elite for a successor. The palace schools, which also educated the future administrators of the state, were not a single track. First, theMadrasa (Medrese) was designated for the Muslims, and educated scholars and state officials according to Islamic tradition. The financial burden of the Medrese was supported byvakifs, allowing children of poor families to move to higher social levels and income.[182] The second track was a freeboarding school for the Christians, theEnderûn,[183] which recruited 3,000 students annually from Christian boys between eight and twenty years old from one in forty families among the communities settled inRumelia or the Balkans, a process known asDevshirme (Devşirme).[184] The Devshirme falls within modern definitions ofgenocide.[185][186]
Though the sultan was the supreme monarch, the sultan's political and executive authority was delegated. The politics of the state had a number of advisors and ministers gathered around a council known asDivan. The Divan, in the years when the Ottoman state was still aBeylik, was composed of the elders of the tribe. Its composition was later modified to include military officers and local elites (such as religious and political advisors). Later still, beginning in 1320, a Grand Vizier was appointed to assume certain of the sultan's responsibilities. The Grand Vizier had considerable independence from the sultan with almost unlimited powers of appointment, dismissal, and supervision. Beginning with the late 16th century, sultans withdrew from politics and the Grand Vizier became thede facto head of state.[187]
Throughout Ottoman history, there were many instances in which local governors acted independently, and even in opposition to the ruler. After the Young Turk Revolution of 1908, the Ottoman state became a constitutional monarchy. The sultan no longer had executive powers. A parliament was formed, with representatives chosen from the provinces. The representatives formed theImperial Government of the Ottoman Empire.
This eclectic administration was apparent even in the diplomatic correspondence of the Empire, which was initially undertaken in theGreek language to the west.[188]
TheTughra were calligraphic monograms, or signatures, of the Ottoman Sultans, of which there were 35. Carved on the Sultan's seal, they bore the names of the Sultan and his father. The statement and prayer, "ever victorious", was also present in most. The earliest belonged to Orhan Gazi. The ornately stylizedTughra spawned a branch of Ottoman-Turkishcalligraphy.
The Ottoman legal system accepted thereligious law over its subjects. At the same time theQanun (orKanun), dynastic law, co-existed with religious law orSharia.[190][191] The Ottoman Empire was always organized around a system of localjurisprudence. Legal administration in the Ottoman Empire was part of a larger scheme of balancing central and local authority.[192] Ottoman power revolved crucially around the administration of the rights to land, which gave a space for the local authority to develop the needs of the localmillet.[192] The jurisdictional complexity of the Ottoman Empire was aimed to permit the integration of culturally and religiously different groups.[192] The Ottoman system had three court systems: one for Muslims, one for non-Muslims, involving appointed Jews and Christians ruling over their respective religious communities, and the "trade court". The entire system was regulated from above by means of the administrativeQanun, i.e., laws, a system based upon the TurkicYassa andTöre, which were developed in the pre-Islamic era.[193][194]
These court categories were not, however, wholly exclusive; for instance, the Islamic courts, which were the Empire's primary courts, could also be used to settle a trade conflict or disputes between litigants of differing religions, and Jews and Christians often went to them to obtain a more forceful ruling on an issue. The Ottoman state tended not to interfere with non-Muslim religious law systems, despite legally having a voice to do so through local governors. The IslamicSharia law system had been developed from a combination of theQur'an; theHadīth, or words ofMuhammad;ijmā', or consensus of the members of theMuslim community;qiyas, a system of analogical reasoning from earlier precedents; and local customs. Both systems were taught at the Empire's law schools, which were inIstanbul andBursa.
The Ottoman Islamic legal system was set up differently from traditional European courts. Presiding over Islamic courts was aQadi, or judge. Since the closing of theijtihad, or 'Gate of Interpretation',Qadis throughout the Ottoman Empire focused less on legal precedent, and more with local customs and traditions in the areas that they administered.[192] However, the Ottoman court system lacked an appellate structure, leading to jurisdictional case strategies where plaintiffs could take their disputes from one court system to another until they achieved a ruling that was in their favour.
An Ottoman trial, 1877
In the late 19th century, the Ottoman legal system saw substantial reform. This process of legal modernisation began with theEdict of Gülhane of 1839.[195] These reforms included the "fair and public trial[s] of all accused regardless of religion", the creation of a system of "separate competences, religious and civil", and the validation of testimony on non-Muslims.[196] Specific land codes (1858), civil codes (1869–1876), and a code of civil procedure also were enacted.[196]
These reforms were based heavily on French models, as indicated by the adoption of a three-tiered court system. Referred to asNizamiye, this system was extended to the local magistrate level with the final promulgation of theMecelle, a civil code that regulated marriage, divorce, alimony, will, and other matters of personal status.[196] In an attempt to clarify the division of judicial competences, an administrative council laid down that religious matters were to be handled by religious courts, and statute matters were to be handled by the Nizamiye courts.[196]
The first military unit of the Ottoman State was an army that was organized by Osman I from the tribesmen inhabiting the hills of western Anatolia in the late 13th century. The military system became an intricate organization with the advance of the Empire. The Ottoman military was a complex system of recruiting and fief-holding. The main corps of theOttoman Army included Janissary,Sipahi,Akıncı andMehterân. The Ottoman army was once among the most advanced fighting forces in the world, being one of the first to use muskets and cannons. The Ottoman Turks began usingfalconets, which were short but wide cannons, during theSiege of Constantinople. The Ottoman cavalry depended on high speed and mobility rather than heavy armor, using bows and short swords on fastTurkoman andArabian horses (progenitors of theThoroughbred racing horse),[197][198] and often applied tactics similar to those of theMongol Empire, such as pretending to retreat while surrounding the enemy forces inside a crescent-shaped formation and then making the real attack. The Ottoman army continued to be an effective fighting force throughout the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries,[199][200] falling behind the empire's European rivals only during a long period of peace from 1740 to 1768.[64]
The modernization of the Ottoman Empire in the 19th century started with the military. In 1826 Sultan Mahmud II abolished the Janissary corps and established the modern Ottoman army. He named them as theNizam-ı Cedid (New Order). The Ottoman army was also the first institution to hire foreign experts and send its officers for training in western European countries. Consequently, the Young Turks movement began when these relatively young and newly trained men returned with their education.
TheOttoman Navy vastly contributed to the expansion of the Empire's territories on the European continent. It initiated the conquest of North Africa, with the addition ofAlgeria and Egypt to the Ottoman Empire in 1517. Starting with the loss of Greece in 1821 and Algeria in 1830, Ottoman naval power and control over the Empire's distant overseas territories began to decline. SultanAbdülaziz (reigned 1861–1876) attempted to reestablish a strong Ottoman navy, building the largest fleet after those of Britain and France. The shipyard at Barrow, England, built its firstsubmarine in 1886 for the Ottoman Empire.[201]
However, the collapsing Ottoman economy could not sustain the fleet's strength for long. SultanAbdülhamid II distrusted the admirals who sided with the reformistMidhat Pasha and claimed that the large and expensive fleet was of no use against the Russians during the Russo-Turkish War. He locked most of the fleet inside theGolden Horn, where the ships decayed for the next 30 years. Following the Young Turk Revolution in 1908, the Committee of Union and Progress sought to develop a strong Ottoman naval force. TheOttoman Navy Foundation was established in 1910 to buy new ships through public donations.
The establishment ofOttoman military aviation dates back to between June 1909 and July 1911.[202][203] The Ottoman Empire started preparing its first pilots and planes, and with the founding of the Aviation School (Tayyare Mektebi) inYeşilköy on 3 July 1912, the Empire began to tutor its own flight officers. The founding of the Aviation School quickened advancement in the military aviation program, increased the number of enlisted persons within it, and gave the new pilots an active role in the Ottoman Army and Navy. In May 1913, the world's first specialized Reconnaissance Training Program was started by the Aviation School, and the first separate reconnaissance division was established.[citation needed] In June 1914 a new military academy, the Naval Aviation School (Bahriye Tayyare Mektebi) was founded. With the outbreak of World War I, the modernization process stopped abruptly. TheOttoman Aviation Squadrons fought on many fronts during World War I, fromGalicia in the west to the Caucasus in the east andYemen in the south.
Administrative divisions of the Ottoman Empire in 1899 (year 1317 Hijri)
The Ottoman Empire was first subdivided into provinces, in the sense of fixed territorial units with governors appointed by the sultan, in the late 14th century.[204]
TheEyalet (alsoPashalik orBeylerbeylik) was the territory of office of aBeylerbey ("lord of lords" or governor), and was further subdivided intoSanjaks.[205]
TheVilayets were introduced with the promulgation of the "Vilayet Law" (Teskil-i Vilayet Nizamnamesi)[206] in 1864, as part of the Tanzimat reforms.[207] Unlike the previous eyalet system, the 1864 law established a hierarchy of administrative units: the vilayet,liva/sanjak/mutasarrifate,kaza andvillage council, to which the 1871 Vilayet Law added thenahiye.[208]
Ottoman government deliberately pursued a policy for the development of Bursa, Edirne, and Istanbul, successive Ottoman capitals, into major commercial and industrial centers, considering that merchants and artisans were indispensable in creating a new metropolis.[209] To this end, Mehmed and his successor Bayezid, also encouraged and welcomed migration of the Jews from different parts of Europe, who were settled in Istanbul and other port cities like Salonica. In many places in Europe, Jews were suffering persecution at the hands of their Christian counterparts, such as in Spain, after the conclusion of theReconquista. The tolerance displayed by the Turks was welcomed by the immigrants.
The Ottoman economic mind was closely related to the basic concepts of state and society in the Middle East in which the ultimate goal of a state was consolidation and extension of the ruler's power, and the way to reach it was to get rich resources of revenues by making the productive classes prosperous.[210] The ultimate aim was to increase the state revenues without damaging the prosperity of subjects to prevent the emergence of social disorder and to keep the traditional organization of the society intact. The Ottoman economy greatly expanded during the early modern period, with particularly high growth rates during the first half of the eighteenth century. The empire's annual income quadrupled between 1523 and 1748, adjusted for inflation.[211]
The organization of the treasury and chancery were developed under the Ottoman Empire more than any other Islamic government and, until the 17th century, they were the leading organization among all their contemporaries.[187] This organisation developed a scribal bureaucracy (known as "men of the pen") as a distinct group, partly highly trained ulama, which developed into a professional body.[187] The effectiveness of this professional financial body stands behind the success of many great Ottoman statesmen.[212]
Modern Ottoman studies indicate that the change in relations between the Ottoman Turks and central Europe was caused by the opening of the new sea routes. It is possible to see the decline in the significance of the land routes to the East as Western Europe opened the ocean routes that bypassed the Middle East and the Mediterranean as parallel to the decline of the Ottoman Empire itself.[213][failed verification] TheAnglo-Ottoman Treaty, also known as theTreaty of Balta Liman that opened the Ottoman markets directly to English and French competitors, can be seen as one of the staging posts along with this development.
By developing commercial centers and routes, encouraging people to extend the area of cultivated land in the country and international trade through its dominions, the state performed basic economic functions in the Empire. But in all this, the financial and political interests of the state were dominant. Within the social and political system they were living in, Ottoman administrators could not see the desirability of the dynamics and principles of the capitalist and mercantile economies developing in Western Europe.[214]
Economic historianPaul Bairoch argues thatfree trade contributed todeindustrialisation in the Ottoman Empire. In contrast to theprotectionism of China, Japan, and Spain, the Ottoman Empire had aliberal trade policy, open to foreign imports. This has origins incapitulations of the Ottoman Empire, dating back to the first commercial treaties signed with France in 1536 and taken further withcapitulations in 1673 and 1740, which loweredduties to 3% for imports and exports. The liberal Ottoman policies were praised by British economists, such asJohn Ramsay McCulloch in hisDictionary of Commerce (1834), but later criticized by British politicians such as Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli, who cited the Ottoman Empire as "an instance of the injury done by unrestrained competition" in the 1846Corn Laws debate.[215]
A population estimate for the empire of 11,692,480 for the 1520–1535 period was obtained by counting the households in Ottoman tithe registers, and multiplying this number by 5.[216] For unclear reasons, the population in the 18th century was lower than that in the 16th century.[217] An estimate of 7,230,660 for the first census held in 1831 is considered a serious undercount, as this census was meant only to register possible conscripts.[216]
Censuses of Ottoman territories only began in the early 19th century. Figures from 1831 onwards are available as official census results, but the censuses did not cover the whole population. For example, the 1831 census only counted men and did not cover the whole empire.[94][216] For earlier periods estimates of size and distribution of the population are based on observed demographic patterns.[218]
However, it began to rise to reach 25–32 million by 1800, with around 10 million in the European provinces (primarily in the Balkans), 11 million in the Asiatic provinces, and around 3 million in the African provinces. Population densities were higher in the European provinces, double those in Anatolia, which in turn were triple the population densities of Iraq andSyria and five times the population density of Arabia.[219]
Towards the end of the empire's existence life expectancy was 49 years, compared to the mid-twenties in Serbia at the beginning of the 19th century.[220] Epidemic diseases and famine caused major disruption and demographic changes. In 1785 around one-sixth of the Egyptian population died from the plague and Aleppo saw its population reduced by twenty percent in the 18th century. Six famines hit Egypt alone between 1687 and 1731 and the last famine to hit Anatolia was four decades later.[221]
The rise of port cities saw the clustering of populations caused by the development of steamships and railroads. Urbanization increased from 1700 to 1922, with towns and cities growing. Improvements in health and sanitation made them more attractive to live and work in. Port cities like Salonica, in Greece, saw its population rise from 55,000 in 1800 to 160,000 in 1912 and İzmir which had a population of 150,000 in 1800 grew to 300,000 by 1914.[222][223] Some regions conversely had population falls—Belgrade saw its population drop from 25,000 to 8,000 mainly due to political strife.[222]
The town ofSafranbolu is one of the best preserved Ottoman villages.
Economic and political migrations made an impact across the empire. For example, theRussian and Austria-Habsburg annexation of the Crimean and Balkan regions respectively saw large influxes of Muslim refugees—200,000 Crimean Tatars fleeing to Dobruja.[224] Between 1783 and 1913, approximately 5–7 million refugees arrived into the Ottoman Empire. Between the 1850s and World War I, about a million North Caucasian Muslims arrived in the Ottoman Empire as refugees.[134] Some migrations left indelible marks such as political tension between parts of the empire (e.g., Turkey and Bulgaria), whereas centrifugal effects were noticed in other territories, simpler demographics emerging from diverse populations. Economies were also impacted by the loss of artisans, merchants, manufacturers, and agriculturists.[225] Since the 19th century, a large proportion of Muslim peoples from the Balkans emigrated to present-day Turkey. These people are calledMuhacir.[226] By the time the Ottoman Empire came to an end in 1922, half of the urban population of Turkey was descended from Muslim refugees from Russia.[126]
1911 Ottoman calendar shown in several different languages such as: Ottoman Turkish, Greek, Armenian, Hebrew, Bulgarian and French
Ottoman Turkish was the official language of the Empire.[227] It was anOghuzTurkic language highly influenced byPersian andArabic, though lower registries spoken by the common people had fewer influences from other languages compared to higher varieties used by upper classes and governmental authorities.[228] Turkish, in its Ottoman variation, was a language of military and administration since the nascent days of the Ottomans. The Ottoman constitution of 1876 did officially cement the official imperial status of Turkish.[229]
The Ottomans had several influential languages: Turkish, spoken by the majority of the people in Anatolia and by the majority of Muslims of the Balkans except some regions such asAlbania,Bosnia[230] and theMegleno-Romanian-inhabitedNânti;[231] Persian, only spoken by the educated;[230] Arabic, spoken mainly in Egypt, theLevant,Arabia, Iraq, North Africa,Kuwait and parts of theHorn of Africa andBerber in North Africa. In the last two centuries, usage of these became limited, though, and specific: Persian served mainly as a literary language for the educated,[230] whileArabic was used for Islamic prayers. In the post-Tanzimat period French became the common Western language among the educated.[17]
Because of a low literacy rate among the public (about 2–3% until the early 19th century and just about 15% at the end of the 19th century), ordinary people had to hirescribes as "special request-writers" (arzuhâlcis) to be able to communicate with the government.[232] Some ethnic groups continued to speak within their families and neighborhoods (mahalles) with their own languages, though many non-Muslim minorities such as Greeks and Armenians only spoke Turkish.[233] In villages where two or more populations lived together, the inhabitants often spoke each other's language. In cosmopolitan cities, people often spoke their family languages; many of those who were not ethnicTurks spoke Turkish as a second language.[citation needed]
Sunni Islam was the prevailingDīn (customs, legal traditions, and religion) of the Ottoman Empire; the officialMadh'hab (school of Islamicjurisprudence) wasHanafi.[234] From the early 16th century until the early 20th century, the Ottoman sultan also served as thecaliph, or politico-religious leader, of theMuslim world. Most of the Ottoman Sultans adhered toSufism and followedSufi orders, and believed Sufism was the correct way to reach God.[235]
Non-Muslims, particularly Christians and Jews, were present throughout the empire's history. The Ottoman imperial system was charactised by an intricate combination of official Muslim hegemony over non-Muslims and a wide degree of religious tolerance. While religious minorities were never equal under the law, they were granted recognition, protection, and limited freedoms under both Islamic and Ottoman tradition.[236]
Until the second half of the 15th century, the majority of Ottoman subjects were Christian.[192] Non-Muslims remained a significant and economically influential minority, albeit declining significantly by the 19th century, due largely to migration andsecession.[236] The proportion of Muslims amounted to 60% in the 1820s, gradually increasing to 69% in the 1870s and 76% in the 1890s.[236] By 1914, less than a fifth of the empire's population (19.1%) was non-Muslim, mostly made up of Jews and Christian Greeks, Assyrians, and Armenians.[236]
Turkic peoples practiced a form ofshamanism before adopting Islam. TheMuslim conquest of Transoxiana under theAbbasids facilitated the spread of Islam into the Turkic heartland of Central Asia. Many Turkic tribes—including theOghuz Turks, who were the ancestors of both the Seljuks and the Ottomans—gradually converted to Islam and brought religion to Anatolia through their migrations beginning in the 11th century. From its founding, the Ottoman Empire officially supported theMaturidi school ofIslamic theology, which emphasizedhuman reason,rationality, the pursuit of science andphilosophy (falsafa).[237][238] The Ottomans were among the earliest and most enthusiastic adopters of theHanafi school of Islamic jurisprudence,[239] which was comparatively more flexible and discretionary in its rulings.[240][241]
The Ottoman Empire had a wide variety of Islamic sects, includingDruze,Ismailis,Alevis, andAlawites.[242]Sufism, a diverse body of Islamicmysticism, found fertile ground in Ottoman lands; many Sufi religious orders (tariqa), such as theBektashi andMevlevi, were either established, or saw significant growth, throughout the empire's history.[243] However, some heterodox Muslim groups were viewed as heretical and even ranked below Jews and Christians in terms of legal protection; Druze were frequent targets of persecution,[244] with Ottoman authorities often citing the controversial rulings ofIbn Taymiyya, a member of the conservativeHanbali school.[245] In 1514, Sultan Selim I ordered the massacre of 40,000 Anatolian Alevis (Qizilbash), whom he considered afifth column for the rivalSafavid Empire.
During Selim's reign, the Ottoman Empire saw an unprecedented and rapid expansion into the Middle East, particularly theconquest of the entire Mamluk Sultanate of Egypt on the early 16th century. These conquests further solidified the Ottoman claim of being anIslamic caliphate, although Ottoman sultans had been claiming the title of caliph since the reign of Murad I (1362–1389).[18] The caliphate was officially transferred from the Mamluks to the Ottoman sultanate in 1517, whose members were recognized as caliphs until theoffice's abolition on 3 March 1924 by theRepublic of Turkey (and the exile of the last caliph,Abdülmecid II, to France).
In accordance with the Muslimdhimmi system, the Ottoman Empire guaranteed limited freedoms to Christians, Jews, and other "people of the book", such as the right to worship, own property, and be exempt from the obligatory alms (zakat) required of Muslims. However, non-Muslims (ordhimmi) were subject to various legal restrictions, including being forbidden to carry weapons, ride on horseback, or have their homes overlook those of Muslims; likewise, they were required to pay higher taxes than Muslim subjects, including thejizya, which was a key source of state revenue.[246][247] Many Christians and Jews converted to Islam to secure full social and legal status, though most continued to practice their faith without restriction.
The Ottomans developed a unique sociopolitical system known as themillet, which granted non-Muslim communities a large degree of political, legal, and religious autonomy; in essence, members of a millet were subjects of the empire but not subject to the Muslim faith or Islamic law. A millet could govern its own affairs, such as raising taxes and resolving internal legal disputes, with little or no interference from Ottoman authorities, so long as its members were loyal to the sultan and adhered to the rules concerningdhimmi. A quintessential example is the ancient Orthodox community ofMount Athos, which was permitted to retain its autonomy and was never subject to occupation or forced conversion; even special laws were enacted to protect it from outsiders.[248]
TheRum Millet, which encompassed most Eastern Orthodox Christians, was governed by the Byzantine-eraCorpus Juris Civilis (Code of Justinian), with theEcumenical Patriarch designated the highest religious and political authority (millet-bashi, orethnarch). Likewise,Ottoman Jews came under the authority of theHaham Başı, or OttomanChief Rabbi, whileArmenians were under the authority of thechief bishop of theArmenian Apostolic Church.[249] As the largest group of non-Muslim subjects, the Rum Millet enjoyed several special privileges in politics and commerce; however, Jews and Armenians were also well represented among the wealthy merchant class, as well as in public administration.[250][251]
Some modern scholars consider the millet system to be an early example ofreligious pluralism, as it accorded minority religious groups official recognition and tolerance.[252]
Ethnic map of the Ottoman Empire in 1917. Black = Bulgars and Turks, Red = Greeks, Light yellow = Armenians, Blue = Kurds, Orange = Lazes, Dark Yellow = Arabs, Green = Nestorians
Beginning in the early 19th century, society, government, and religion were interrelated in a complex, overlapping way that was deemed inefficient by Atatürk, who systematically dismantled it after 1922.[253][254] In Constantinople, the Sultan ruled two distinct domains: the secular government and the religious hierarchy. Religious officials formed the Ulama, who had control of religious teachings and theology, and also the Empire's judicial system, giving them a major voice in day-to-day affairs in communities across the Empire (but not including the non-Muslim millets). They were powerful enough to reject the military reforms proposed by SultanSelim III. His successor SultanMahmud II (r. 1808–1839) first won ulama approval before proposing similar reforms.[255] The secularisation program brought by Atatürk ended the ulema and their institutions. The caliphate was abolished, madrasas were closed down, and the sharia courts were abolished. He replaced the Arabic alphabet with Latin letters, ended the religious school system, and gave women some political rights. Many rural traditionalists never accepted this secularisation, and by the 1990s they were reasserting a demand for a larger role for Islam.[256]
The Janissaries were a highly formidable military unit in the early years, but as Western Europe modernized its military organization technology, the Janissaries became a reactionary force that resisted all change. Steadily the Ottoman military power became outdated, but when the Janissaries felt their privileges were being threatened, or outsiders wanted to modernize them, or they might be superseded by the cavalrymen, they rose in rebellion. The rebellions were highly violent on both sides, but by the time the Janissaries were suppressed, it was far too late for Ottoman military power to catch up with the West.[257][258] The political system was transformed by the destruction of theJanissaries, a powerful military/governmental/police force, which revolted in theAuspicious Incident of 1826. Sultan Mahmud II crushed the revolt, executed the leaders and disbanded the large organization. That set the stage for a slow process of modernization of government functions, as the government sought, with mixed success, to adopt the main elements of Western bureaucracy and military technology.
The Janissaries had been recruited from Christians and other minorities; their abolition enabled the emergence of a Turkish elite to control the Ottoman Empire. A large number of ethnic and religious minorities were tolerated in their own separate segregated domains called millets.[259] They were primarilyGreek,Armenian, orJewish. In each locality, they governed themselves, spoke their own language, ran their own schools, cultural and religious institutions, and paid somewhat higher taxes. They had no power outside the millet. The Imperial government protected them and prevented major violent clashes between ethnic groups.
Ethnic nationalism, based on distinctive religion and language, provided a centripetal force that eventually destroyed the Ottoman Empire.[260] In addition, Muslim ethnic groups, which were not part of the millet system, especially the Arabs and the Kurds, were outside the Turkish culture and developed their own separate nationalism. The British sponsored Arab nationalism in the First World War, promising an independent Arab state in return for Arab support. Most Arabs supported the Sultan, but those near Mecca believed in and supported the British promise.[261]
At the local level, power was held beyond the control of the Sultan by theayans or local notables. The ayan collected taxes, formed local armies to compete with other notables, took a reactionary attitude toward political or economic change, and often defied policies handed down by the Sultan.[262]
After the 18th century, the Ottoman Empire was shrinking, as Russia put on heavy pressure and expanded to its south; Egypt became effectively independent in 1805, and the British later took it over, along with Cyprus. Greece became independent, and Serbia and other Balkan areas became highly restive as the force of nationalism pushed against imperialism. The French took over Algeria and Tunisia. The Europeans all thought that the empire was a sick man in rapid decline. Only the Germans seemed helpful, and their support led to the Ottoman Empire joining the central powers in 1915, with the result that they came out as one of the heaviest losers of the First World War in 1918.[263]
The Ottomans absorbed some of the traditions, art, and institutions of cultures in the regions they conquered and added new dimensions to them. Numerous traditions and cultural traits of previous empires (in fields such as architecture, cuisine, music, leisure, and government) were adopted by the Ottoman Turks, who developed them into new forms, resulting in a new and distinctively Ottoman cultural identity. Although the predominant literary language of the Ottoman Empire was Turkish, Persian was the preferred vehicle for the projection of an imperial image.[264]
Slavery was part of Ottoman society,[265] with most slaves employed as domestic servants. Agricultural slavery, like that in the Americas, was relatively rare. Unlike systems ofchattel slavery, slaves under Islamic law were not regarded as movable property, and the children of female slaves were born legally free. Female slaves were still sold in the Empire as late as 1908.[266] During the 19th century the Empire came under pressure from Western European countries to outlaw the practice. Policies developed by various sultans throughout the 19th century attempted to curtail theOttoman slave trade but slavery had centuries of religious backing and sanction and so was never abolished in the Empire.[249]
Ottomans adopted Persian bureaucratic traditions and culture. The sultans also made an important contribution in the development of Persian literature.[267]
Language was not an obvious sign of group connection and identity in the 16th century among the rulers of the Ottoman Empire,Safavid Iran andAbu'l-Khayrid Shibanids ofCentral Asia.[268] Hence the ruling classes of all three polities were bilingual in varieties of Persian and Turkic.[268] But in the century's final quarter, linguistic adjustments occurred in the Ottoman and Safavid realms defined by a new rigidity that favoured Ottoman Turkish and Persian, respectively.[268]
In the Ottoman Empire, eachmillet established a schooling system serving its members.[269] Education was therefore largely divided on ethnic and religious lines: few non-Muslims attended schools for Muslim students, and vice versa. Most institutions that served all ethnic and religious groups taught in French or other languages.[270]
Several "foreign schools" (Frerler mektebleri) operated by religious clergy primarily served Christians, although some Muslim students attended.[269] Garnett described the schools for Christians and Jews as "organised upon European models", with "voluntary contributions" supporting their operation and most of them "well attended" and with "a high standard of education".[271]
The two primary streams of Ottoman written literature are poetry andprose. Poetry was by far the dominant stream. The earliest work of Ottoman historiography for example, theİskendernâme, was composed by the poetTaceddin Ahmedi.[272] Until the 19th century, Ottoman prose did not contain any examples of fiction: there were no counterparts to, for instance, the Europeanromance, short story, or novel. Analog genres did exist, though, in bothTurkish folk literature and inDivan poetry.
Ottoman Divan poetry was a highly ritualized and symbolic art form. From thePersian poetry that largely inspired it, it inherited a wealth of symbols whose meanings and interrelationships—both of similitude (مراعات نظيرmura'ât-i nazîr /تناسبtenâsüb) and opposition (تضادtezâd) were more or less prescribed. Divan poetry was composed through the constant juxtaposition of many such images within a strict metrical framework, allowing numerous potential meanings to emerge. The vast majority of Divan poetry waslyric in nature: eithergazels (which make up the greatest part of the repertoire of the tradition), or kasîdes. But there were other common genres, especially the mesnevî, a kind ofverse romance and thus a variety ofnarrative poetry; the two most notable examples of this form are theLeyli and Majnun ofFuzuli and theHüsn ü Aşk ofŞeyh Gâlib. TheSeyahatnâme ofEvliya Çelebi (1611–1682) is an outstanding example of travel literature.
Until the 19th century,Ottoman prose did not develop to the extent that contemporary Divan poetry did. A large part of the reason was that much prose was expected to adhere to the rules ofsec (سجع, also transliterated asseci), orrhymed prose,[273] a type of writing descended from the Arabicsaj' that prescribed that between each adjective and noun in a string of words, such as a sentence, there must be a rhyme. Nevertheless, there was a tradition of prose in the literature of the time, though it was exclusively nonfictional. One apparent exception wasMuhayyelât (Fancies) byGiritli Ali Aziz Efendi, a collection of stories of the fantastic written in 1796, though not published until 1867. The first novel published in the Ottoman Empire wasVartan Pasha's 1851The Story of Akabi (Turkish:Akabi Hikyayesi). It was written in Turkish but withArmenian script.[274][275][276][277]
Due to historically close ties with France,French literature constituted the major Western influence on Ottoman literature in the latter half of the 19th century. As a result, many of the same movements prevalent in France during this period had Ottoman equivalents; in the developing Ottoman prose tradition, for instance, the influence ofRomanticism can be seen during the Tanzimat period, and that of theRealist andNaturalist movements in subsequent periods; in the poetic tradition, on the other hand, the influence of theSymbolist andParnassian movements was paramount.
Many of the writers in the Tanzimat period wrote in several different genres simultaneously. This diversity was, in part, due to Tanzimat writers' wish to disseminate as much of the new literature as possible, in the hopes that it would contribute to a revitalization of Ottomansocial structures.[278]
The media of the Ottoman Empire was diverse, with newspapers and journals published in languages includingFrench,[279]Greek,[280] andGerman.[249] Many of these publications were centered inConstantinople,[281] but there were also French-language newspapers produced inBeirut,Salonika, andSmyrna.[282] Non-Muslim ethnic minorities in the empire used French as alingua franca and used French-language publications,[279] while some provincial newspapers were published inArabic.[283] The use of French in the media persisted until theend of the empire in 1923 and for a few years thereafter in theRepublic of Turkey.[279]
Ottoman dynastic patronage was concentrated in the historic capitals of Bursa, Edirne, and Istanbul (Constantinople), as well as in several other important administrative centers such asAmasya andManisa. It was in these centers that most important developments in Ottoman architecture occurred and that the most monumental Ottoman architecture can be found.[298] Major religious monuments were typically architectural complexes, known as akülliye, that had multiple components providing different services or amenities. In addition to a mosque, these could include amadrasa, ahammam, animaret, asebil, a market, acaravanserai, aprimary school, or others.[299] These complexes were governed and managed with the help of avakıf agreement (Arabicwaqf).[299] Ottoman constructions were still abundant in Anatolia and in the Balkans (Rumelia), but in the more distant Middle Eastern and North African provinces olderIslamic architectural styles continued to hold strong influence and were sometimes blended with Ottoman styles.[300][301]
Ottoman miniature lost its function with the Westernization of Ottoman culture.
The tradition ofOttoman miniatures, painted to illustrate manuscripts or used in dedicated albums, was heavily influenced by thePersian art form, though it also included elements of theByzantine tradition ofillumination and painting.[302] A Greek academy of painters, theNakkashane-i-Rum, was established in theTopkapi Palace in the 15th century, while early in the following century a similar Persian academy, theNakkashane-i-Irani, was added.Surname-i Hümayun (Imperial Festival Books) were albums that commemorated celebrations in the Ottoman Empire in pictorial and textual detail.
Ottoman illumination covers non-figurative painted or drawn decorative art in books or on sheets inmuraqqa or albums, as opposed to the figurative images of theOttoman miniature. It was a part of the Ottoman Book Arts together with the Ottoman miniature (taswir), calligraphy (hat),Islamic calligraphy, bookbinding (cilt) andpaper marbling (ebru). In the Ottoman Empire,illuminated and illustrated manuscripts were commissioned by the Sultan or the administrators of the court. In Topkapi Palace, these manuscripts were created by the artists working inNakkashane, the atelier of the miniature and illumination artists. Both religious and non-religious books could be illuminated. Also, sheets for albumslevha consisted of illuminated calligraphy (hat) oftughra, religious texts, verses from poems or proverbs, and purely decorative drawings.
The art of carpetweaving was particularly significant in the Ottoman Empire, carpets having an immense importance both as decorative furnishings, rich in religious and other symbolism and as a practical consideration, as it was customary to remove one's shoes in living quarters.[303] The weaving of such carpets originated in thenomadic cultures of central Asia (carpets being an easily transportable form of furnishing), and eventually spread to the settled societies of Anatolia. Turks used carpets, rugs, andkilims not just on the floors of a room but also as a hanging on walls and doorways, where they provided additional insulation. They were also commonly donated to mosques, which often amassed large collections of them.[304]
Musicians and dancers entertaining the crowds, from theSurname-i Hümayun, 1720
Ottoman classical music was an important part of the education of the Ottoman elite. A number of the Ottoman sultans have accomplished musicians and composers themselves, such asSelim III, whose compositions are often still performed today. Ottoman classical music arose largely from a confluence ofByzantine music,Armenian music,Arabic music, andPersian music. Compositionally, it is organized around rhythmic units calledusul, which are somewhat similar tometer in Western music, andmelodic units calledmakam, which bear some resemblance to Westernmusical modes.
Theinstruments used are a mixture of Anatolian and Central Asian instruments (thesaz, thebağlama, thekemence), other Middle Eastern instruments (theud, thetanbur, thekanun, theney), and—later in the tradition—Western instruments (the violin and the piano). Because of a geographic and cultural divide between the capital and other areas, two broadly distinct styles of music arose in the Ottoman Empire: Ottoman classical music and folk music. In the provinces, several different kinds offolk music were created. The most dominant regions with their distinguished musical styles are Balkan-Thracian Türküs, North-Eastern (Laz) Türküs, Aegean Türküs, Central Anatolian Türküs, Eastern Anatolian Türküs, and Caucasian Türküs. Some of the distinctive styles were:Janissary music,Roma music,Belly dance,Turkish folk music.
The traditionalshadow play calledKaragöz and Hacivat was widespread throughout the Ottoman Empire and featured characters representing all of the major ethnic and social groups in that culture.[305][306] It was performed by a single puppet master, who voiced all of the characters, and accompanied bytambourine (def). Its origins are obscure, deriving perhaps from an older Egyptian tradition, or possibly from an Asian source.
Ottoman cuisine is the cuisine of the capital, Constantinople (Istanbul), and the regional capital cities, where the melting pot of cultures created a common cuisine that most of the population regardless of ethnicity shared. This diverse cuisine was honed in the Imperial Palace's kitchens by chefs brought from certain parts of the Empire to create and experiment with different ingredients. The creations of the Ottoman Palace's kitchens filtered to the population, for instance throughRamadan events, and through the cooking at theYalıs of thePashas, and from there on spread to the rest of the population.
Much of the cuisine of former Ottoman territories today is descended from a shared Ottoman cuisine, especiallyTurkish, and includingGreek,Balkan,Armenian, andMiddle Eastern cuisines.[307]
Over the course of Ottoman history, the Ottomans managed to build a large collection of libraries complete with translations of books from other cultures, as well as original manuscripts.[59] A great part of this desire for local and foreign manuscripts arose in the 15th century.Sultan Mehmet II orderedGeorgios Amiroutzes, a Greek scholar fromTrabzon, to translate and make available to Ottoman educational institutions the geography book ofPtolemy. Another example isAli Qushji – anastronomer,mathematician andphysicist originally fromSamarkand – who became a professor in two madrasas and influenced Ottoman circles as a result of his writings and the activities of his students, even though he only spent two or three years in Constantinople before his death.[308]
Girl Reciting the Qurān (Kuran Okuyan Kız), an 1880 painting by the Ottoman polymathOsman Hamdi Bey, whose works often showed women engaged in educational activities[312]
In the early 19th century,Egypt under Muhammad Ali began usingsteam engines for industrial manufacturing, with industries such asironworks,textile manufacturing,paper mills andhulling mills moving towards steam power.[315] Economic historian Jean Batou argues that the necessary economic conditions existed in Egypt for the adoption ofoil as a potential energy source for its steam engines later in the 19th century.[315]
^İslâm Ansiklopedisi: "It is disputed when the Ottomans conquered this place; Various dates have been put forward in this regard, such as 1361, 1362, 1367 and 1369. Among these, the opinion that Edirne was captured in 1361 as a result of a systematic conquest policy by Murad and Lala Şahin, while Orhan Gazi was still alive, gains prominence. However, it has also been stated that the date of conquest may have occurred after 1366 (1369), based on an elegy showing that the city metropolitan Polykarpos was in Edirne in this capacity until 1366.[4]
^In Ottoman Turkish, the city was known by various names, among which wereḲosṭanṭīnīye (قسطنطينيه) (replacing the suffix-polis with the Arabic suffix),Istanbul (استنبول) andIslambol (اسلامبول,lit.'full of Islam'); seeNames of Istanbul). Kostantiniyye became obsolete in Turkish after theproclamation of the Republic of Turkey in 1923,[5] and after Turkey's transition to Latin script in 1928,[6] the Turkish government in 1930 requested that foreign embassies and companies useIstanbul, and that name became widely accepted internationally.[7]
^Court, diplomacy, poetry, historiographical works, literary works, taught in state schools, and offered as an elective course or recommended for study in somemadrasas.[8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15]
^Among Greek-speaking community; spoken by some sultans.
^In 1922, the Ottoman Empire came to an end with theabolition of the monarchy, and Abdülmecid, a member of theOttoman dynasty, was elected caliph by the Grand National Assembly of Turkey to replace the last sultan Mehmed VI and held the title under the Ankara Government (1922–1923) and the Republic (1923–1924).
^1 November 1922 marks the formal ending of the Ottoman Empire. Mehmed VI departed Constantinople on 17 November 1922.
^TheTreaty of Sèvres (10 August 1920) afforded a small existence to the Ottoman Empire. On 1 November 1922, theGrand National Assembly (GNAT) abolished the sultanate and declared that all the deeds of the Ottoman regime in Constantinople were null and void as of 16 March 1920, the date of theoccupation of Constantinople under the terms of the Treaty of Sèvres. The international recognition of the GNAT and theGovernment of Ankara was achieved through the signing of theTreaty of Lausanne on 24 July 1923. The Grand National Assembly of Turkey promulgated the Republic on 29 October 1923.
^A lock-hold on trade between western Europe and Asia is often cited as a primary motivation forIsabella I of Castile to fundChristopher Columbus's westward journey to find a sailing route to Asia and, more generally, for European seafaring nations to explore alternative trade routes (e.g., K.D. Madan,Life and travels of Vasco Da Gama (1998), 9; I. Stavans,Imagining Columbus: the literary voyage (2001), 5; W.B. Wheeler and S. Becker,Discovering the American Past. A Look at the Evidence: to 1877 (2006), 105). This traditional viewpoint has been attacked as unfounded in an influential article by A.H. Lybyer ("The Ottoman Turks and the Routes of Oriental Trade",English Historical Review, 120 (1915), 577–588), who sees the rise of Ottoman power and the beginnings of Portuguese and Spanish explorations as unrelated events. His view has not been universally accepted (cf. K.M. Setton,The Papacy and the Levant (1204–1571), Vol. 2: The Fifteenth Century (Memoirs of the American Philosophical Society, Vol. 127) (1978), 335).
^Though the revolt was officially initiated on the 10 June, bin Ali's sons'Ali andFaisal had already initiated operations at Medina starting on 5 June.[166]
^Edhem, Eldem (21 May 2010). "Istanbul". In Gábor, Ágoston; Masters, Bruce Alan (eds.).Encyclopedia of the Ottoman Empire. Infobase. p. 286.ISBN978-1-4381-1025-7.With the collapse of the Ottoman Empire and the establishment of the Republic of Turkey, all previous names were abandoned and Istanbul came to designate the entire city.
^Shaw, Stanford J.; Shaw, Ezel Kural (1977b).History of the Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey. Vol. 2: Reform, Revolution, and Republic: The Rise of Modern Turkey 1808–1975. Cambridge University Press.doi:10.1017/CBO9780511614972.ISBN9780511614972.
^Inan, Murat Umut (2019). "Imperial Ambitions, Mystical Aspirations: Persian Learning in the Ottoman World". In Green, Nile (ed.).The Persianate World: The Frontiers of a Eurasian Lingua Franca. University of California Press. pp. 88–89.As the Ottoman Turks learned Persian, the language and the culture it carried seeped not only into their court and imperial institutions but also into their vernacular language and culture. The appropriation of Persian, both as a second language and as a language to be steeped together with Turkish, was encouraged notably by the sultans, the ruling class, and leading members of the mystical communities.
^Tezcan, Baki (2012). "Ottoman Historical Writing". In Rabasa, José (ed.).The Oxford History of Historical Writing: Volume 3: 1400–1800 The Oxford History of Historical Writing: Volume 3: 1400–1800. Oxford University Press. pp. 192–211.Persian served as a 'minority' prestige language of culture at the largely Turcophone Ottoman court.
^Spuler, Bertold (2003).Persian Historiography and Geography. Pustaka Nasional Pte. p. 68.ISBN978-9971-77-488-2.Archived from the original on 14 January 2023. Retrieved21 October 2022.On the whole, the circumstance in Turkey took a similar course: in Anatolia, the Persian language had played a significant role as the carrier of civilization. [...] where it was at time, to some extent, the language of diplomacy [...] However Persian maintained its position also during the early Ottoman period in the composition of histories and even Sultan Salim I, a bitter enemy of Iran and the Shi'ites, wrote poetry in Persian. Besides some poetical adaptations, the most important historiographical works are: Idris Bidlisi's flowery "Hasht Bihist", or Seven Paradises, begun in 1502 by the request of Sultan Bayazid II and covering the first eight Ottoman rulers...
^Fetvacı, Emine (2013).Picturing History at the Ottoman Court.Indiana University Press. p. 31.ISBN978-0-253-00678-3.Archived from the original on 21 October 2022. Retrieved21 October 2022.Persian literature, and belles-lettres in particular, were part of the curriculum: a Persian dictionary, a manual on prose composition; and Sa'dis 'Gulistan', one of the classics of Persian poetry, were borrowed. All these titles would be appropriate in the religious and cultural education of the newly converted young men.
^Inan, Murat Umut (2019). "Imperial Ambitions, Mystical Aspirations: Persian learning in the Ottoman World". InGreen, Nile (ed.).The Persianate World The Frontiers of a Eurasian Lingua Franca. University of California Press. p. 92 (note 27).Though Persian, unlike Arabic, was not included in the typical curriculum of an Ottoman madrasa, the language was offered as an elective course or recommended for study in some madrasas. For those Ottoman madrasa curricula featuring Persian, see Cevat İzgi, Osmanlı Medreselerinde İlim, 2 vols. (Istanbul: İz, 1997),1: 167–169.
^Ayşe Gül Sertkaya (2002). "Şeyhzade Abdurrezak Bahşı". In György Hazai (ed.).Archivum Ottomanicum. Vol. 20. pp. 114–115.Archived from the original on 24 October 2022. Retrieved23 October 2022.As a result, we can claim thatŞeyhzade Abdürrezak Bahşı was a scribe lived in the palaces of Sultan Mehmed the Conqueror and his son Bayezid-i Veli in the 15th century, wrote letters (bitig) and firmans (yarlığ) sent to Eastern Turks by Mehmed II and Bayezid II in both Uighur and Arabic scripts and in East Turkestan (Chagatai) language.
^Pamuk, Şevket (2000).A Monetary History of the Ottoman Empire. Cambridge University Press. pp. 30–31.ISBN0-521-44197-8.Archived from the original on 14 January 2023. Retrieved21 October 2022.The Ottomans began to strike coins in the name ofOrhan Bey in 1326. These earliest coins carried inscriptions such as "the great Sultan, Orhan son of Osman" [...] Ottoman historiography has adopted 1299 as the date for the foundation of the state. 1299 might represent the date at which the Ottomans finally obtained their independence from theSeljuk sultan atKonya. Probably, they were forced at the same time, or very soon thereafter, to accept the overlordship of theIlkhanids [...] Numismatic evidence thus suggest that independence did not really occur until 1326.
Kaser 2011, p. 336: "The emerging Christian nation states justified the prosecution of their Muslims by arguing that they were their former "suppressors". The historical balance: between about 1820 and 1920, millions of Muslim casualties and refugees back to the remaining Ottoman Empire had to be registered; estimations speak about 5 million casualties and the same number of displaced persons"
Fábos 2005, p. 437: "Muslims had been the majority in Anatolia, the Crimea, the Balkans, and the Caucasus and a plurality in southern Russia and sections of Romania. Most of these lands were within or contiguous with the Ottoman Empire. By 1923, 'only Anatolia, eastern Thrace, and a section of the southeastern Caucasus remained to the Muslim land ... Millions of Muslims, most of them Turks, had died; millions more had fled to what is today Turkey. Between 1821 and 1922, more than five million Muslims were driven from their lands. Five and one-half million Muslims died, some of them killed in wars, others perishing as refugees from starvation and disease' (McCarthy 1995, 1). Since people in the Ottoman Empire were classified by religion, Turks, Albanians, Bosnians, and all other Muslim groups were recognized—and recognized themselves—simply as Muslims. Hence, their persecution and forced migration is of central importance to an analysis of 'Muslim migration.'"
Schayegh, Cyrus (2024). "A Late/Post-Imperial Region of Difference: The Ottoman Empire and its Successor Polities in Southeastern Europe, Turkey, and the Arab East, c. 1850s–1940s".Journal of World History.35 (4):579–622.doi:10.1353/jwh.2024.a943172.Between 1821 and the 1919–1922 Turko-Greek War, about five and a half million Muslims died of religious-ethnic war-related causes, including disease and hunger during forced migration, in southeastern Europe and the Crimea and Caucasus.
Karpat 2001, p. 343: "The main migrations started from Crimea in 1856 and were followed by those from the Caucasus and the Balkans in 1862 to 1878 and 1912 to 1916. These have continued to our day. The quantitative indicators cited in various sources show that during this period a total of about 7 million migrants from Crimea, the Caucasus, the Balkans, and the Mediterranean islands settled in Anatolia. These immigrants were overwhelmingly Muslim, except for a number of Jews who left their homes in the Balkans and Russia in order to live in the Ottoman lands. By the end of the century the immigrants and their descendants constituted some 30 to 40 percent of the total population of Anatolia, and in some western areas their percentage was even higher." ... "The immigrants called themselves Muslims rather than Turks, although most of those from Bulgaria, Macedonia, and eastern Serbia descended from the Turkish Anatolian stock who settled in the Balkans in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries."
Karpat 2004, pp. 5–6: "Migration was a major force in the social and cultural reconstruction of the Ottoman state in the nineteenth century. While some seven to nine million, mostly Muslim, refugees from lost territories in the Caucasus, Crimea, Balkans and Mediterranean islands migrated to Anatolia and Eastern Thrace, during the last quarter of the nineteenth and the early part of the twentieth centuries..."
Pekesen 2012: "The immigration had far-reaching social and political consequences for the Ottoman Empire and Turkey." ... "Between 1821 and 1922, some 5.3 million Muslims migrated to the Empire.50 It is estimated that in 1923, the year the republic of Turkey was founded, about 25 per cent of the population came from immigrant families.51"
Biondich 2011, p. 93: "The road from Berlin to Lausanne was littered with millions of casualties. In the period between 1878 and 1912, as many as two million Muslims emigrated voluntarily or involuntarily from the Balkans. When one adds those who were killed or expelled between 1912 and 1923, the number of Muslim casualties from the Balkan far exceeds three million. By 1923 fewer than one million remained in the Balkans"
Armour 2012, p. 213: "To top it all, the Empire was host to a steady stream of Muslim refugees. Russia between 1854 and 1876 expelled 1.4 million Crimean Tartars, and in the mid-1860s another 600,000 Circassians from the Caucasus. Their arrival produced further economic dislocation and expense."
Bosma, Lucassen & Oostindie 2012a, p. 17: "In total, many millions of Turks (or, more precisely, Muslim immigrants, including some from the Caucasus) were involved in this 'repatriation' – sometimes more than once in a lifetime – the last stage of which may have been the immigration of seven hundred thousand Turks from Bulgaria between 1940 and 1990. Most of these immigrants settled in urban north-western Anatolia. Today between a third and a quarter of the Republic's population are descendants of these Muslim immigrants, known as Muhacir or Göçmen"
^Ágoston, Gábor (2009). "Introduction". In Ágoston, Gábor; Bruce Masters (eds.).Encyclopedia of the Ottoman Empire.
^Imber, Colin (2009).The Ottoman Empire, 1300–1650: The Structure of Power (2 ed.). New York: Palgrave Macmillan. p. 3.By the seventeenth century, literate circles in Istanbul would not call themselves Turks, and often, in phrases such as 'senseless Turks', used the word as a term of abuse.
^Kafadar, Cemal (2007). "A Rome of One's Own: Cultural Geography and Identity in the Lands of Rum".Muqarnas.24.
^Soucek, Svat (2015).Ottoman Maritime Wars, 1416–1700. Istanbul: The Isis Press. p. 8.ISBN978-975-428-554-3.The scholarly community specializing in Ottoman studies has of late virtually banned the use of "Turkey", "Turks", and "Turkish" from acceptable vocabulary, declaring "Ottoman" and its expanded use mandatory and permitting its "Turkish" rival only in linguistic and philological contexts.
^A'goston, Ga'bor; Masters, Bruce Alan (2008).Encyclopedia of the Ottoman Empire. Infobase Publishing, NY. p. 444.ISBN978-0-8160-6259-1. "Osman was simply one among a numberTurkoman tribal leaders operating in the Sakarya region.";"Osman I".Encyclopedia Britannica.Archived from the original on 24 April 2018. Retrieved1 July 2020. Osman I, also called Osman Gazi, (bornc. 1258—died 1324 or 1326), ruler of a Turkmen principality in northwestern Anatolia who is regarded as the founder of the Ottoman Turkish state.
^Finkel, Caroline (13 February 2006).Osman's Dream: The Story of the Ottoman Empire, 1300–1923. Basic Books. pp. 2, 7.ISBN978-0-465-02396-7.
^Kermeli, Eugenia (2009) [2008]. "Osman I". In Ágoston, Gábor; Masters, Bruce (eds.).Encyclopedia of the Ottoman Empire. Infobase Publishing.ISBN978-1-4381-1025-7.
^Lindner, Rudi Paul (2009). "Anatolia, 1300–1451". In Fleet, Kate (ed.).The Cambridge History of Turkey. Vol. 1, Byzantium to Turkey,1071–1453. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
^Quataert, Donald (2005).The Ottoman Empire, 1700–1922 (2 ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 4.ISBN978-0-521-83910-5.
^abStone, Norman (2005)."Turkey in the Russian Mirror". In Mark Erickson, Ljubica Erickson (ed.).Russia War, Peace And Diplomacy: Essays in Honour of John Erickson. Weidenfeld & Nicolson. p. 94.ISBN978-0-297-84913-1.Archived from the original on 14 January 2023. Retrieved20 June 2015.
^Karpat, Kemal H. (1974).The Ottoman state and its place in world history. Leiden: Brill.ISBN978-90-04-03945-2.
^Savory, R. M. (1960). "The Principal Offices of the Ṣafawid State during the Reign of Ismā'īl I (907–930/1501–1524)".Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London.23 (1):91–105.doi:10.1017/S0041977X00149006.JSTOR609888.S2CID154467531.
^Hess, Andrew C. (January 1973). "The Ottoman Conquest of Egypt (1517) and the Beginning of the Sixteenth-Century World War".International Journal of Middle East Studies.4 (1):55–76.doi:10.1017/S0020743800027276.JSTOR162225.S2CID162219690.
^"Ottoman Empire". Oxford Islamic Studies Online. 6 May 2008. Archived fromthe original on 10 June 2022. Retrieved26 August 2010.
^Imber, Colin (2002).The Ottoman Empire, 1300–1650: The Structure of Power. Palgrave Macmillan.ISBN978-0-333-61386-3.
^Thompson, Bard (1996).Humanists and Reformers: A History of the Renaissance and Reformation. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing. p. 442.ISBN978-0-8028-6348-5.
^abÁgoston and Alan Masters, Gábor and Bruce (2009).Encyclopedia of the Ottoman Empire. Infobase Publishing. p. 583.ISBN978-1-4381-1025-7.
^The Reign of Suleiman the Magnificent, 1520–1566, V.J. Parry,A History of the Ottoman Empire to 1730, ed. M.A. Cook (Cambridge University Press, 1976), 94.
^A Global Chronology of Conflict: From the Ancient World to the Modern Middle East, Vol. II, ed. Spencer C. Tucker, (ABC-CLIO, 2010). 516.
^Revival: A History of the Art of War in the Sixteenth Century (1937). Routledge. 2018.
^abAksan, Virginia (2007).Ottoman Wars, 1700–1860: An Empire Besieged. Pearson Education Ltd. pp. 130–135.ISBN978-0-582-30807-7.
^Imber, Colin (2002).The Ottoman Empire, 1300–1650: The Structure of Power. Palgrave Macmillan. p. 53.ISBN978-0-333-61386-3.
^abcHathaway, Jane (2008).The Arab Lands under Ottoman Rule, 1516–1800. Pearson Education Ltd. p. 8.ISBN978-0-582-41899-8.historians of the Ottoman Empire have rejected the narrative of decline in favor of one of crisis and adaptation;Tezcan, Baki (2010).The Second Ottoman Empire: Political and Social Transformation in the Early Modern Period. Cambridge University Press. p. 9.ISBN978-1-107-41144-9.Ottomanist historians have produced several works in the last decades, revising the traditional understanding of this period from various angles, some of which were not even considered as topics of historical inquiry in the mid-twentieth century. Thanks to these works, the conventional narrative of Ottoman history – that in the late sixteenth century the Ottoman Empire entered a prolonged period of decline marked by steadily increasing military decay and institutional corruption – has been discarded.;Woodhead, Christine (2011). "Introduction". In Christine Woodhead (ed.).The Ottoman World. Routledge. p. 5.ISBN978-0-415-44492-7.Ottomanist historians have largely jettisoned the notion of a post-1600 'decline'
^Ágoston, Gábor (2009). "Süleyman I". In Masters, Bruce (ed.).Encyclopedia of the Ottoman Empire.
^Ágoston, Gábor (2009). "Introduction". In Ágoston, Gábor; Bruce Masters (eds.).Encyclopedia of the Ottoman Empire. p. xxxii.;Faroqhi, Suraiya (1994). "Crisis and Change, 1590–1699". In İnalcık, Halil; Donald Quataert (eds.).An Economic and Social History of the Ottoman Empire, 1300–1914. Vol. 2. Cambridge University Press. p. 553.ISBN978-0-521-57456-3.In the past fifty years, scholars have frequently tended to view this decreasing participation of the sultan in political life as evidence for "Ottoman decadence", which supposedly began at some time during the second half of the sixteenth century. But recently, more note has been taken of the fact that the Ottoman Empire was still a formidable military and political power throughout the seventeenth century, and that noticeable though limited economic recovery followed the crisis of the years around 1600; after the crisis of the 1683–1699 war, there followed a longer and more decisive economic upswing. Major evidence of decline was not visible before the second half of the eighteenth century.
^Faroqhi, Suraiya (1994). "Crisis and Change, 1590–1699". In İnalcık, Halil; Donald Quataert (eds.).An Economic and Social History of the Ottoman Empire, 1300–1914. Vol. 2. Cambridge University Press.ISBN978-0-521-57456-3.
^Şahin, Kaya (2013).Empire and Power in the Reign of Süleyman: Narrating the Sixteenth-Century Ottoman World. Cambridge University Press.ISBN978-1-107-03442-6.
^Faroqhi, Suraiya (1994). "Crisis and Change, 1590–1699". In İnalcık, Halil; Quataert, Donald (eds.).An Economic and Social History of the Ottoman Empire, 1300–1914. Vol. 2. Cambridge University Press.ISBN978-0-521-57456-3.
^Braudel, Fernand Braudel (1995).The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II. Vol. II. Berkeley: University of California Press.
^Kunt, Metin; Woodhead, Christine (1995).Süleyman the Magnificent and His Age: the Ottoman Empire in the Early Modern World. Longman.ISBN978-0-582-03827-1.
^"History". Istanbul Technical University. Archived fromthe original on 18 June 2012. Retrieved6 November 2011.
^abcStone, Norman (2005)."Turkey in the Russian Mirror". In Mark Erickson, Ljubica Erickson (ed.).Russia War, Peace And Diplomacy: Essays in Honour of John Erickson. Weidenfeld & Nicolson. p. 97.ISBN978-0-297-84913-1.Archived from the original on 14 January 2023. Retrieved20 June 2015.
^Watson, William J. (1968). "Ibrahim Muteferrika and Turkish Incunabula".Journal of the American Oriental Society.88 (3):435–441.doi:10.2307/596868.JSTOR596868.
^Middle East and Africa: International Dictionary of Historic Places. Routledge. 2014. p. 559.
^abcdefStone, Norman (2005)."Turkey in the Russian Mirror". In Mark Erickson, Ljubica Erickson (ed.).Russia War, Peace And Diplomacy: Essays in Honour of John Erickson. Weidenfeld & Nicolson. p. 95.ISBN978-0-297-84913-1.Archived from the original on 14 January 2023. Retrieved20 June 2015.
^Memoirs of Miliutin, "the plan of action decided upon for 1860 was to cleanse [ochistit'] the mountain zone of its indigenous population", per Richmond, W.The Northwest Caucasus: Past, Present, and Future. Routledge. 2008.
^Richmond, Walter (2008).The Northwest Caucasus: Past, Present, Future. Taylor & Francis US. p. 79.ISBN978-0-415-77615-8.Archived from the original on 14 January 2023. Retrieved20 June 2015.the plan of action decided upon for 1860 was to cleanse [ochistit'] the mountain zone of its indigenous population
^Stone, Norman "Turkey in the Russian Mirror" pp. 86–100 fromRussia War, Peace and Diplomacy edited by Mark & Ljubica Erickson, Weidenfeld & Nicolson: London, 2004 p. 95.
^Baten, Jörg (2016).A History of the Global Economy. From 1500 to the Present. Cambridge University Press.ISBN978-1-107-50718-0.
^Quataert, Donald (1994). "The Age of Reforms, 1812–1914". In İnalcık, Halil; Donald Quataert (eds.).An Economic and Social History of the Ottoman Empire, 1300–1914. Vol. 2. Cambridge University Press. p. 762.ISBN978-0-521-57456-3.
^Reynolds, Michael A. (2011).Shattering Empires: The Clash and Collapse of the Ottoman and Russian Empires 1908–1918. Cambridge University Press. pp. 1, 324.ISBN978-0521149167.
^Erickson, Edward (2013).Ottomans and Armenians: A Study in Counterinsurgency. Palgrave Macmillan. p. 32.ISBN978-1137362209.
^Findley, Carter Vaughn (2010).Turkey, Islam, Nationalism and Modernity: A History, 1789–2007. New Haven: Yale University Press. p. 200.ISBN978-0-300-15260-9.
^Totten, Samuel, Paul Robert Bartrop, Steven L. Jacobs (eds.)Dictionary of Genocide. Greenwood Publishing Group, 2008, p. 19.ISBN0-313-34642-9.
^Bijak, Jakub; Lubman, Sarah (2016). "The Disputed Numbers: In Search of the Demographic Basis for Studies of Armenian Population Losses, 1915–1923".The Armenian Genocide Legacy. Palgrave Macmillan UK. p. 39.ISBN978-1-137-56163-3.
^Quataert, Donald (2005).The Ottoman Empire, 1700–1922. Cambridge University Press (Kindle edition). p. 186.;Schaller, Dominik J; Zimmerer, Jürgen (2008). "Late Ottoman genocides: the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire and Young Turkish population and extermination policies – introduction".Journal of Genocide Research.10 (1):7–14.doi:10.1080/14623520801950820.S2CID71515470.
^Walker, Christopher J. (1980).Armenia: The Survival of A Nation. London: Croom Helm. pp. 200–203.
^Howard, Douglas A. (2016).A History of the Ottoman Empire. Cambridge University Press. p. 318.ISBN978-1-108-10747-1.
^Norman Stone, "Turkey in the Russian Mirror", pp. 86–100 fromRussia War, Peace and Diplomacy edited by Mark & Ljubica Erickson, Weidenfeld & Nicolson: London, 2004 pp. 92–93
^Lowry, Heath W. (2003).The nature of the early Ottoman state. SUNY Press.
^Dariusz Kołodziejczyk, "Khan, caliph, tsar and imperator: the multiple identities of the Ottoman sultan" in Peter Fibiger Bang, and Dariusz Kolodziejczyk, eds.Universal Empire: A Comparative Approach to Imperial Culture and Representation in Eurasian History (Cambridge University Press, 2012) pp. 175–193.
^Sinan Ed Kuneralp, ed.A Bridge Between Cultures (2006) p. 9.
^Ronald C. Jennings, "Some thoughts on the Gazi-thesis."Wiener Zeitschrift für die Kunde des Morgenlandes 76 (1986): 151–161onlineArchived 28 March 2020 at theWayback Machine.
^Totten, S.; Theriault, H.; von Joeden-Forgey, E. (2017).Controversies in the Field of Genocide Studies. Taylor & Francis. p. 99.ISBN978-1-351-29499-7. Retrieved18 January 2025.Lemkin specifically cited the Ottoman Turkish Empire to illustrate another recurring theme in the history of genocide: "The children can be taken away from a given group for the purpose of educating them within the framework of another human group, racial, national or ethnical" (quoted in Docker, 2008, 12).
^abcdEpstein, Lee; O'Connor, Karen; Grub, Diana."Middle East"(PDF).Legal Traditions and Systems: an International Handbook. Greenwood Press. pp. 223–224. Archived fromthe original(PDF) on 25 May 2013. Retrieved15 February 2013.
^Milner, Mordaunt (1990).The Godolphin Arabian: The Story of the Matchem Line. Robert Hale Limited. pp. 3–6.ISBN978-0-85131-476-1.
^Wall, John F.Famous Running Horses: Their Forebears and Descendants. p. 8.ISBN978-1-163-19167-5.
^Murphey, Rhoads (1999).Ottoman Warfare, 1500–1700. UCL Press. p. 10.
^Ágoston, Gábor (2005).Guns for the Sultan: Military Power and the Weapons Industry in the Ottoman Empire. Cambridge University Press. pp. 200–02.
^İnalcık, Halil (1970). "The Ottoman Economic Mind and Aspects of the Ottoman Economy". In Cook, M. A. (ed.).Studies in the Economic History of the Middle East: from the Rise of Islam to the Present Day. Oxford University Press. p. 209.ISBN978-0-19-713561-7.
^İnalcık, Halil (1970). "The Ottoman Economic Mind and Aspects of the Ottoman Economy". In Cook, M. A. (ed.).Studies in the Economic History of the Middle East: from the Rise of Islam to the Present Day. Oxford University Press. p. 217.ISBN978-0-19-713561-7.
^Darling, Linda (1996).Revenue-Raising and Legitimacy: Tax Collection and Finance Administration in the Ottoman Empire, 1560–1660. E.J. Brill. pp. 238–239.ISBN978-90-04-10289-7.
^İnalcık, Halil; Quataert, Donald (1971).An Economic and Social History of the Ottoman Empire, 1300–1914. p. 120.
^Donald Quataert,The Ottoman Empire 1700–1922 (2005) p 24
^İnalcık, Halil (1970). "The Ottoman Economic Mind and Aspects of the Ottoman Economy". In Cook, M. A. (ed.).Studies in the Economic History of the Middle East: from the Rise of Islam to the Present Day. Oxford University Press. p. 218.ISBN978-0-19-713561-7.
^Leila Erder and Suraiya Faroqhi (October 1979). "Population Rise and Fall in Anatolia 1550–1620".Middle Eastern Studies.15 (3):322–345.doi:10.1080/00263207908700415.
^Shaw, S. J. (1978). "The Ottoman Census System and Population, 1831–1914".International Journal of Middle East Studies.9 (3). Cambridge University Press: 325.doi:10.1017/S0020743800033602.S2CID161326705.The Ottomans developed an efficient system for counting the empire's population in 1826, a quarter of a century after such methods were introduced in Britain, France and America.
^Pamuk, S (August 1991). "The Ottoman Empire and the World Economy: The Nineteenth Century".International Journal of Middle East Studies.23 (3). Cambridge University Press.
^Davison, Roderic H. (31 December 1964).Reform in the Ottoman Empire, 1856–1876.doi:10.1515/9781400878765.ISBN978-1-4008-7876-5.Archived from the original on 14 January 2023. Retrieved22 July 2021.There was the ruling Ottoman group, now largely concentrated in the bureaucracy centered on the Sublime Porte, and the mass of the people, mostly peasants. The efendi looked down on "the Turk," which was a term of opprobrium indicating boorishness, and preferred to think of himself as an Osmanli. His country was not Turkey, but the Ottoman State. His language was also "Ottoman"; though he might also call it "Turkish," in such a case he distinguished it fromkaba türkçe, or coarse Turkish, the common speech. His writing included a minimum of Turkish words, except for particles and auxiliary verbs.
^"The Ottoman Constitution, promulgated the seventh Zilbridge, 1293 (11/23 December 1876)".The American Journal of International Law.2 (4): 376. 1908.doi:10.2307/2212668.JSTOR2212668.S2CID246006581.
^Davison 1964, p. 62It was true also that there was a partial linguistic amalgam of the peoples in the empire. Many Greeks and Armenians did not know their national languages and spoke Turkish alone, though they wrote it in Greek and Armenian characters.
^abcdİçduygu, Ahmet; Toktaş, Şule; Ali Soner, B. (1 February 2008). "The politics of population in a nation-building process: emigration of non-Muslims from Turkey".Ethnic and Racial Studies.31 (2):358–389.doi:10.1080/01419870701491937.hdl:11729/308.S2CID143541451.
^S. Swayd, Samy (2009).The Druzes: An Annotated Bibliography. University of Michigan Press. p. 25.ISBN978-0-9662932-0-3.
^Peri, Oded (1990). "The Muslim waqf and the collection of jizya in late eighteenth-century Jerusalem". In Gilbar, Gad (ed.).Ottoman Palestine, 1800–1914 : Studies in economic and social history. Leiden: E.J. Brill. p. 287.ISBN978-90-04-07785-0.thejizya was one of the main sources of revenue accruing to the Ottoman state treasury as a whole.
^Philip D. Curtin,The World and the West: The European Challenge and the Overseas Response in the Age of Empire (2002), pp. 173–192.
^Fatma Muge Gocek,Rise of the Bourgeoisie, Demise of Empire: Ottoman Westernization and Social Change (1996) pp 138–42
^Kemal H. Karpat, "The transformation of the Ottoman State, 1789–1908."International Journal of Middle East Studies 3#3 (1972): 243–281.onlineArchived 17 April 2018 at theWayback Machine
^Peter Mansfield,A History of the Middle East (1991) p. 31.
^Oleg Benesch, "Comparing Warrior Traditions: How the Janissaries and Samurai Maintained Their Status and Privileges During Centuries of Peace."Comparative Civilizations Review 55.55 (2006): 6:37–55OnlineArchived 9 November 2019 at theWayback Machine.
^Karen Barkey, and George Gavrilis, "The Ottoman millet system: non-territorial autonomy and its contemporary legacy."Ethnopolitics 15.1 (2016): 24–42.
^abcComstock-Skipp, Jaimee (2023). "Turk amongst Tajiks: The TurkicShāhnāma Translation Located in Tajikistan and Manuscript Production during the Abuʾl-Khayrid Annexation of Khurasan (1588–1598)". In Paskaleva, Elena; van den Berg, Gabrielle (eds.).Memory and Commemoration across Central Asia. Brill. p. 54.ISBN978-90-04-54099-6.
^abStrauss, Johann. "Language and power in the Late Ottoman Empire" (Chapter 7). In: Murphey, Rhoads (editor).Imperial Lineages and Legacies in the Eastern Mediterranean: Recording the Imprint of Roman, Byzantine and Ottoman Rule (Volume 18 of Birmingham Byzantine and Ottoman Studies). Routledge, 7 July 2016.ISBN1-317-11844-8, 9781317118442.Google BooksPT194Archived 1 November 2022 at theWayback Machine-PT195Archived 1 November 2022 at theWayback Machine.
^Strauss, Johann. "Language and power in the late Ottoman Empire" (Chapter 7). In: Murphey, Rhoads (editor).Imperial Lineages and Legacies in the Eastern Mediterranean: Recording the Imprint of Roman, Byzantine and Ottoman Rule (Volume 18 of Birmingham Byzantine and Ottoman Studies). Routledge, 7 July 2016.ISBN1-317-11844-8, 9781317118442.Google BooksPT195Archived 1 November 2022 at theWayback Machine.
^Kastritsis, Dimitris J. (2007).The sons of Bayezid: empire building and representation in the Ottoman civil war of 1402-1413. The Ottoman empire and its heritage. Leiden ; Boston: Brill. pp. 33–37.ISBN978-90-04-15836-8.
^Murat Belge (2005).Osmanlı'da kurumlar ve kültür. İstanbul Bilgi Üniversitesi Yayınları. p. 389.ISBN978-975-8998-03-6.
^Mignon, Laurent (2005).Neither Shiraz nor Paris: papers on modern Turkish literature. Istanbul: ISIS. p. 20.ISBN978-975-428-303-7.Archived from the original on 14 January 2023. Retrieved17 January 2016.Those words could have been readily adopted by Hovsep Vartanyan (1813–1879), the author, who preferred to remain anonymous, of The Story of Akabi (Akabi Hikyayesi), the first novel in Turkish, published with Armenian characters in the same year asHisarian's novel.
^Masters, Bruce; Ágoston, Gábor (2009).Encyclopedia of the Ottoman Empire. New York: Facts On File. p. 440.ISBN978-1-4381-1025-7.Archived from the original on 14 January 2023. Retrieved20 June 2015.Written in Turkish using the Armenian alphabet, the Akabi History (1851) by Vartan Pasha is considered by some to be the first Ottoman novel.
^Pultar, Gönül (2013).Imagined identities: identity formation in the age of globalism (First ed.). [S.l.]: Syracuse University Press. p. 329.ISBN978-0-8156-3342-6.Archived from the original on 14 January 2023. Retrieved17 January 2016.In fact, one of the first Turkish works of fiction in Western-type novel form, Akabi Hikayesi (Akabi's Story), was written in Turkish by Vartan Pasha (born Osep/Hovsep Vartanian/Vartanyan, 1813–1879) and published in Armenian characters in 1851.
^Gürçaglar, Şehnaz; Paker, Saliha; Milton, John (2015).Tradition, Tension, and Translation in Turkey. John Benjamins Publishing Company. p. 5.ISBN978-90-272-6847-1.It is interesting that the first Ottoman novel in Turkish, Akabi Hikayesi (1851, Akabi's Story), was written and published in Armenian letters (for Armenian communities who read in Turkish) by Hovsep Vartanyan (1813–1879), known as Vartan Paşa, a leading Ottoman man of letters and journalist.
^Moran, Berna (1997).Türk Romanına Eleştirel Bir Bakış Vol. 1. İletişim Yayınları. p. 19.ISBN978-975-470-054-1.
^Strauss, Johann. "Language and power in the late Ottoman Empire" (Chapter 7). In: Murphey, Rhoads (editor).Imperial Lineages and Legacies in the Eastern Mediterranean: Recording the Imprint of Roman, Byzantine and Ottoman Rule. Routledge, 7 July 2016. (ISBN978-1-317-11845-9), p.122Archived 14 January 2023 at theWayback Machine.
^Strauss, "A Constitution for a Multilingual Empire," p. 25 (PDF p. 27)
^"Seljuk architecture",Illustrated Dictionary of Historic Architecture, ed. Cyril M. Harris, (Dover Publications, 1977), 485.
^M. Bloom, Jonathan; S. Blair, Sheila, eds. (2009). "Ottoman".The Grove Encyclopedia of Islamic Art and Architecture. Oxford University Press.ISBN978-0-19-530991-1.Throughout their history the Ottomans remained supporters of art and artists. Under their patronage a distinctive architectural style developed that combined the Islamic traditions of Anatolia, Iran and Syria with those of the Classical world and Byzantium. The result was a rationalist monumentality that favored spatial unity and architectonic expression.
^abFreely 2011, p. 35 "The mosques of the classical period are more elaborate than those of earlier times. They derive from a fusion of a native Turkish tradition with certain elements of the plan of Haghia Sophia, the former cathedral of Constantinople, converted into a mosque in 1453 by Mehmet the Conqueror."
^M. Bloom, Jonathan; Blair, Sheila S., eds. (2009). "Ottoman".The Grove Encyclopedia of Islamic Art and Architecture. Oxford University Press.ISBN978-0-19-530991-1.
^Bloom, Jonathan M.; Blair; Sheila S. (2009)."Kemalettin".Grove Encyclopedia of Islamic Art & Architecture: Three-Volume Set. Oxford University Press. p. 379.ISBN978-0-19-530991-1.Archived from the original on 14 January 2023. Retrieved9 March 2022.
^Faroqhi, Suraiya (2005).Subjects of the Sultan: culture and daily life in the Ottoman Empire (New ed.). London: I.B. Tauris. p. 152.ISBN978-1-85043-760-4.
^Faroqhi, Suraiya (2005).Subjects of the Sultan: culture and daily life in the Ottoman Empire (New ed.). London: I.B. Tauris. p. 153.ISBN978-1-85043-760-4.
^Bert Fragner, "From the Caucasus to the Roof of the World: a culinary adventure", in Sami Zubaida and Richard Tapper,A Taste of Thyme: Culinary Cultures of the Middle East, London,Prague and New York, p. 52
^El-Rouayheb, Khaled (2015).Islamic Intellectual History in the Seventeenth Century: Scholarly Currents in the Ottoman Empire and the Maghreb. Cambridge University Press. pp. 18–19.ISBN978-1-107-04296-4.
^Ahmad Y Hassan (1976),Taqi al-Din and Arabic Mechanical Engineering, p. 34–35, Institute for the History of Arabic Science,University of Aleppo
^"Ottoman Empire".History. 3 November 2017.Archived from the original on 25 January 2019. Retrieved26 August 2010.Additionally, some of the greatest advances in medicine were made by the Ottomans. They invented several surgical instruments that are still used today, such as forceps, catheters, scalpels, pincers and lancets
Imber, Colin (2009).The Ottoman Empire, 1300–1650: The Structure of Power (2 ed.). New York: Palgrave Macmillan.ISBN978-0-230-57451-9.
İnalcık, Halil;Donald Quataert, eds. (1994).An Economic and Social History of the Ottoman Empire, 1300–1914. Cambridge University Press.ISBN978-0-521-57456-3. Two volumes.
Tabak, Faruk.The Waning of the Mediterranean, 1550–1870: A Geohistorical Approach (2008)
Early Ottomans
Kafadar, Cemal (1995).Between Two Worlds: The Construction of the Ottoman State. U California Press.ISBN978-0-520-20600-7.
Lindner, Rudi P. (1983).Nomads and Ottomans in Medieval Anatolia. Bloomington: Indiana UP.ISBN978-0-933070-12-7.
Lowry, Heath (2003).The Nature of the Early Ottoman State. Albany: SUNY Press.ISBN978-0-7914-5636-1.
Diplomatic and military
Ágoston, Gábor (2014). "Firearms and Military Adaptation: The Ottomans and the European Military Revolution, 1450–1800".Journal of World History.25:85–124.doi:10.1353/jwh.2014.0005.S2CID143042353.
Aksan, Virginia (2007).Ottoman Wars, 1700–1860: An Empire Besieged. Pearson Education Limited.ISBN978-0-582-30807-7.
Aksan, Virginia H. "Ottoman Military Matters."Journal of Early Modern History 6.1 (2002): 52–62, historiography;online[dead link]
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Aksan, Virginia. "Breaking the spell of the Baron de Tott: Reframing the question of military reform in the Ottoman Empire, 1760–1830."International History Review 24.2 (2002): 253–277online[dead link].
McMeekin, Sean.The Berlin-Baghdad Express: The Ottoman Empire and Germany's Bid for World Power (2010)
Mikhail, Alan.God's Shadow: Sultan Selim, His Ottoman Empire, and the Making of the Modern World (2020)ISBN978-1-63149-239-6 onSelim I (1470–1529)
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Lieven, Dominic.Empire: The Russian Empire and its rivals (Yale University Press, 2002), comparisons with Russian, British, & Habsburg empires.excerptArchived 19 October 2016 at theWayback Machine
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Quataert, Donald. "Ottoman History Writing and Changing Attitudes towards the Notion of 'Decline.'"History Compass 1 (2003): 1–9.
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1These are traditional areas of settlement; the Turkic group has been living in the listed country/region for centuries and should not be confused with modern diasporas. 2State with limited international recognition.
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