How Did the Ottomans Interact With the Christian Families That They Conquered in the Balkans

Introduction

The Ottoman Empire

The Great Mosque in Damascus, Syria ©

The Ottoman Empire was the one of the largest and longest lasting Empires in history.

Information technology was an empire inspired and sustained by Islam, and Islamic institutions.

Information technology replaced the Byzantine Empire equally the major power in the Eastern Mediterranean.

The Ottoman Empire reached its height under Suleiman the Magnificent (reigned 1520-66), when it expanded to cover the Balkans and Republic of hungary, and reached the gates of Vienna.

The Empire began to decline afterward beingness defeated at the Battle of Lepanto (1571) and losing almost its entire navy. It declined farther during the next centuries, and was effectively finished off by the First Globe War and the Balkan Wars.

One legacy of the Islamic Ottoman Empire is the robust secularism of modernistic Turkey.

At its pinnacle it included:

• Turkey
• Arab republic of egypt
• Greece
• Republic of bulgaria
• Romania
• Macedonia
• Hungary
• Palestine
• Jordan
• Lebanon
• Syrian arab republic
• Parts of Arabia
• Much of the littoral strip of North Africa

Why was the Empire successful?

The recipe for success

There were many reasons why the Ottoman Empire was and so successful:

• Highly centralised
• Ability was e'er transferred to a single person, and not split between rival princes
  • The Ottoman Empire was successfully ruled by a single family for 7 centuries.
• State-run education system
• Faith was incorporated in the state structure, and the Sultan was regarded as "the protector of Islam".
• Country-run judicial system
• Ruthless in dealing with local leaders
• Promotion to positions of ability largely depended on merit
• Created alliances across political and racial groups
• United by Islamic ideology
• United by Islamic warrior lawmaking with platonic of increasing Muslim territory through Jihad
• United past Islamic organisational and authoritative structures
• Highly pragmatic, taking the best ideas from other cultures and making them their own
• Encouraged loyalty from other organized religion groups
• Private ability and wealth were controlled
• Very strong military
  • Strong slave-based army
  • Skillful in developing gunpowder as a military tool
  • Military ethos pervaded whole administration

Origin

After Baghdad fell to the Mongols, the Seljuks declared an independent Sultanate in east and key Asia Small.

In 1301, Uthman, an Uzbek of the Ottoman clan, overthrew the Seljuk aristocracy and proclaimed himself the Sultan of Asia Pocket-size.

Rule of force

At first the rule of the Ottoman Sultans was insecure. To consolidate their Empire the Ottoman Sultans formed groups of fanatical fighters - the orders of the Janissaries, a crack infantry grouping of slaves and Christian converts to Islam.

The Ottomans inflicted a series of defeats on the declining Christian Byzantine Empire and then apace expanded westward.

Constantinople

Constantinople

Constantinople was the centre of the Byzantine Empire. Information technology became the capital of the Ottoman Empire when it was conquered in 1453 by the Ottoman Sultan Mehmet II.

Sultan Suleymaniye Mosque, Istanbul, Turkey ©

Mehmet slaughtered many of the population and forced the rest into exile, later repopulating the city by importing people from elsewhere in Ottoman territory.

Mehmet renamed Constantinople Istanbul – the 'city of Islam' - and set about rebuilding information technology, both physically and politically, as his capital.

Economics

Istanbul became non but a political and military capital, but considering of its position at the junction of Europe, Africa, and Asia, 1 of the great merchandise centres of the world. Another important city was Bursa, which was a centre of the silk trade.

Some of the later on Ottoman conquests were clearly intended to requite them control of other trade routes.

Among the goods traded were:

• Silk and other cloth
• Musk
• Rhubarb
• Porcelain from Prc
• Spices such equally pepper
• Dyestuffs such as indigo

The economic strength of the Empire too owed much to Mehmet's policy of increasing the number of traders and artisans in the Empire.

He first encouraged merchants to motion to Istanbul, and later forcibly resettled merchants from captured territories such as Caffa.

He also encouraged Jewish traders from Europe to migrate to Istanbul and fix upward in business there. Afterwards rulers continued these policies.

The siege of Constantinople

When Sultan Mehmet 2 rode into the urban center of Constantinople on a white horse in 1453, information technology marked the end of a thousand years of the Byzantine Empire. Before attempts to capture the city had largely failed - and then why did the Ottomans succeed this time? What consequence did the fall of Constantinople take on the rest of the Christian earth?

Roger Crowley, writer and historian; Judith Herrin, Professor of Belatedly Antiquarian and Byzantine Studies at King'due south College London; and Colin Imber, formerly Reader in Turkish at Manchester University hash out these questions.

Effects of the fall of Constantinople

The capture of Constantinople ended the Byzantine Empire subsequently 1100 years. The issue of this on Christian Europe was enormous.

1 unexpected result was that many scholars fled from the new empire and went to Italy, where they were influential in sparking off the Renaissance, and increasing trade with the east.

Although the Pope demanded a crusade to recapture Istanbul from the Muslims, the Christian nations failed to produce an army for him, and no endeavor to retake the city was made.

The Muslim authorization of the trading centre of the former Constantinople increased the pressure on Western nations to discover new ways to the East by going westwards. This eventually led to the expeditions of Columbus, Magellan, and Drake.

Other religions

The millet system

Churches were converted into mosques ©

Non-Muslim communities were organised according to the millet system, which gave minority religious/ethnic/geographical communities a limited amount of ability to regulate their own diplomacy - nether the overall supremacy of the Ottoman administration.

The beginning Orthodox Christian millet was established in 1454. This brought Orthodox Christians into a single community nether the leadership of the Patriarch who had considerable authority given to him by the Sultan. Armenian Christian, Jewish and other millets followed in due class.

Some millets paid tax to the land as dhimmis, while others were exempted considering they were seen to exist performing services of value to the land.

The devshirme system

Not-Muslims in parts of the empire had to mitt over some of their children equally a tax under the devshirme ('gathering') system introduced in the 14th century. Conquered Christian communities, especially in the Balkans, had to surrender twenty percent of their male children to the state.

To the horror of their parents, and Western commentators, these children were converted to Islam and served as slaves.

Although the forced removal from their families and conversion was certainly traumatic and out of line with modernistic ideas of human rights, the devshirme system was a rather privileged grade of slavery for some (although others were undoubtedly ill-used).

Some of the youngsters were trained for regime service, where they were able to reach very high ranks, even that of 1000 Vezir. Many of the others served in the elite military corps of the Ottoman Empire, called the Janissaries, which was almost exclusively made upwards of forced converts from Christianity.

The devshirme played a key part in Mehmet's conquest of Constantinople, and from then on regularly held very senior posts in the purple administration.

Although members of the devshirme class were technically slaves, they were of great importance to the Sultan considering they owed him their absolute loyalty and became vital to his power. This status enabled some of the 'slaves' to get both powerful and wealthy. Their condition remained restricted, and their children were not permitted to inherit their wealth or follow in their footsteps.

The devshirme arrangement connected until the terminate of the seventeenth century.

Life under Mehmet

After battles between Muslims and Christians, churches were converted into mosques and mosques into churches co-ordinate to who was the winner.

Although Mehmet converted many churches into mosques, he did not suppress the Christian faith itself. There were practical reasons for this:

• Christians were the largest group of the population and coexistence was probable to be more efficient than conflict
• The institutions of the church provided a machine for implementing Mehmet's rule

But Mehmet was also influenced by the Islamic dominion that Muslims should show respect to all religions.

Mehmet not only tolerated the Christians, he made special efforts to concenter Jews to Istanbul. This was attractive to the Jews, who had previously been persecuted by the Orthodox Christian Church.

The not-Muslim communities (millets) were controlled by the Sultan acting through their religious leaders. These communities were given their own parts of towns in which to live and worship. They were given a cracking deal of freedom to lead their lives according to their item faiths, then were largely supportive of their Muslim overlords.

After Mehmet

Mehmet II died in 1481, and he nominated his eldest son Bayezid as the new Sultan. The Shi'a Muslims in the Ottoman Empire revolted in favour of Bayezid'south brother Jem. The Janissaries suppressed the defection and from and then on became very important in Ottoman politics.

With Janissary support Bayezid's son Selim laid the foundations for a globe Ottoman Empire based entirely on the despotism of the Sultan. The Shi'every bit were ruthlessly suppressed and they retreated to Persia, joining with the local groups of Shi'a and eventually forming their own state nether the Safavid Shahs.

Fratricide

Sultan Selim introduced the policy of fratricide (the murder of brothers).

Under this system whenever a new Sultan ascended to the throne his brothers would exist locked upwardly. As before long every bit the Sultan had produced his first son the brothers (and their sons) would be killed. The new Sultan's sons would exist and so confined until their male parent'due south decease and the whole system would starting time again.

This frequently meant that dozens of sons would be killed while merely i would become Sultan.

In the afterwards centuries of Ottoman rule, the brothers were imprisoned rather than executed.

Sultan and court

The Sultan's life

Main entrance to the Topkapi Palace, Istanbul, Turkey ©

The Sultans lived in the Topkapi Palace in Istanbul.

The Sultan's life was run by rituals copied from the Byzantine court. For case, the Sultan wore his silk robes once and then they were discarded. (Many now are preserved in the Topkapi Musuem.)

The Topkapi Palace held many objects which were used to give legitimacy to the Ottomans and reinforce the Sultan'southward claim to be leader of all Muslims. The near important of these was the mantle of the Prophet Muhammad and his standard and footprint. These were brought from Egypt when Cairo fell to the Ottomans.

It was in the Harem that the Sultan spent his life. Every inhabitant of the 230 small dark rooms in the Topkapi palace was his to command. The number of concubines frequently exceeded a thousand and came from all over the world. The only permanent male staff consisted of eunuchs.

Access to the Sultan meant ability. But no one was to be trusted. The Sultan moved every night to avoid assassination. Favoured males were promoted to rule places far abroad similar Syrian arab republic; males not in favour could exist locked up within the palace.

The harem was a paradox, since it was a feature of the Ottoman Empire (and other Islamic states) withal independent much that was not permissible in Islam. The harem was extravagant, decadent, and vulgar. The concentration of wealth, suffering and injustice toward women was far from the ideals of matrimony and married life in Islam.

Despite this, the harem could bring benefits to a family who had a woman in the harem. Information technology meant patronage, wealth and power; information technology meant access to the most powerful man in the Empire - the Sultan.

Influences and Construction

Although the Ottoman Empire was widely influenced by the faiths and customs of the peoples it incorporated, the virtually meaning influences came from Islam.

The ruling elite worked their way up the bureaucracy of the state madrassahs (religious schools) and the palace schools. They were trained to be concerned with the needs of government and to be mindful of the restrictions of Islamic law.

In its construction the ruling elite reflected a world of order and hierarchy in which promotion and status were rewarded on merit. Thus birth and genealogy, aristocracy or tribe became well-nigh irrelevant to success in the system. But one post, that of the Sultan, was determined by nativity.

Suleiman - a golden age

The Gilt Age of Suleiman

The Ottoman Empire reached the peak of its power during the rule of Selim'south son, Suleiman the Magnificent (ruled 1520 -66) and his grandson Selim II (1566 - 74).

Suleiman came to the throne as one of the wealthiest rulers in the world. His strength owed much to the piece of work his father Selim had done in stabilising regime, removing opposition, frightening (simply not succesfully conquering) the Safavid Empire of Islamic republic of iran into adopting a not-aggression policy, and conquering the Mamluk empire of Arab republic of egypt and Syrian arab republic.

These conquests, which united the lands of Eastern Europe and the Eastern Mediterranean under a single ruler, brought a fourth dimension of peace and stability, under which the Empire flourished.

Suleiman had no internal rivals for power. His male parent had seen to that by executing his own brothers and their sons, and all four of Suleiman's brothers.

The Ottoman Empire now included and then much of the territory where Islam was practiced, and then many of the Islamic holy places, that Suleiman was widely regarded as the religious leader of Islam, likewise as the earthly ruler of most Muslims.

The Empire attracted Muslim artists and craftsmen ©

The wealth and stability of the Empire at this time attracted the superlative Muslim brains of the menses, and craftsmen, artists, intellectuals and writers were eager to move to Istanbul.

Suleiman was named 'The Magnificent' by the Europeans, but his ain people called him 'The Lawgiver'.

Short-termism

Ottoman rulers had a very brusk-term policy. They rejected the idea of developing territory and investing in it for gain at some time in the futurity; state and peoples were exploited to the point of exhaustion and and then more or less abandoned in favour of new basis.

This policy meant that the Ottoman Empire relied on continuous expansion for stability. If it did not grow, information technology was likely to collapse.

Refuse

Decline

The power of the empire was waning by 1683 when the 2nd and terminal effort was made to conquer Vienna. It failed. Without the conquest of Europe and the acquisition of significant new wealth the Empire lost momentum and went into a slow decline.

Several other factors contributed to the Empire's decline:

• The European powers wanted to expand
• Economic issues
  • Competition from trade from the Americas
  • Competition from inexpensive products from India and the Far Due east
  • Development of other trade routes
  • Rising unemployment within the Empire
• Ottoman Empire became less centralised, and central control weakened
• Sultans existence less severe in maintaining rigorous standards of integrity in the adminstration of the Empire
• Sultans becoming less sensitive to public opinion
• The low quality Sultans of the 17th and 18th centuries
• The ending of the execution of Sultan'due south sons and brothers, imprisoning them instead
  • This apparently humane process led to men condign Sultan after spending years in prison house - not the best training for absolute power

Kemal Ataturk created a new modernistic identity ©

Soon the very word Turk became synonymous with treachery and cruelty. This led Turks like Kemal Ataturk, who was born late in the nineteenth century, to be repelled past the Ottoman Turkish political organization and the civilization it had evolved. Seeing little merely disuse and corruption, he led the Turks to create a new modernistic identity.

The empire officially concluded on the 1st November 1922, when the Ottoman sultanate was abolished and Turkey was declared a republic. The Ottoman caliphate continued as an institution, with profoundly reduced authority, until it also was abolished on the 3rd March 1924.

mendozaaromese.blogspot.com

Source: https://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/islam/history/ottomanempire_1.shtml

Bagikan Artikel ini