The Ottoman Empire DR AYSU DINCER Why should

The Ottoman Empire DR AYSU DINCER

Why should we study the Ottoman Empire? �At its height, Ottoman territories spread over three continents �It was the inheritor and synthesizer of Roman, Mongol, Arab, Persian and Byzantine traditions �An opportunity to think about practices of governance, culture, and economics that were in transformation from the late medieval period into the early modern period (and beyond). �An imperial system full of adaptation, innovation, tension and contestation.

Ottoman Empire

Territorial Expansion

The Fall of Constantinople 1453 �Mehmed II (‘The Conqueror’) adopted the title: 'Kaysar (Caesar) Basileus Padishah-i Konstantiniyye and Rum'

Sultan Suleyman the Lawgiver (Kanuni) or Magnificent (r. 1521 -1566) �conquered Hungary, including Budapest �besieged Vienna(without success) in 1529 �pushed the Ottoman borders to the Red Sea, and the Indian Ocean. �consolidating all past sultanic judgements into a law code, called the Kanunname

The Royal Household �Empire never divided among sons �Practice polygyny (multiple wives/concubines) �Fratricide

The Ottoman System of Governance �‘reaya’ or ‘askeri’ �Ulema: religious elite �A multi-ethnic and multi-faith state �Various languages spoken �Non-Muslims have dhimmi status, can practice their own religion, as long as they all pay the jizya/cizye tax �Also toleratant towards other branches of Islam, such as mystical Islam (Sufism) �Law: Sharia courts which implemented Islamic law; also recourse to the kanun, Sultanic law

Trade and the Economy � An emphasis on the welfare of the subjects of the empire � Jewish, Armenian and Greek Orthodox subjects active as merchants in European towns � 'Capitulations' (ahdname): Ottomans granting mutually beneficial trading privileges to French, Dutch and English merchants

Military Organisation �Timar system �Janissaries: devshirme system �Combination of light cavalry, firearms, siege warfare and naval warfare

17 th-century Changes �Long and bloody wars against the Habsburgs and Safavids �Janissary numbers increase from 16, 000 to 40, 000 �Both factors leading to a strain on the treasury �Fiscal changes: timar system replaced by tax farming (held by private individuals) �Rise of a cash economy (but also increasing inflation) �Uprisings (firearms commonly held and used).

The ‘Decline’ Paradigm �Decentralised state (rise of tax-farmers + provincial elites + alternative centres of power)= decline? �‘. . the decline model is not so much wrong as entirely insufficient; it conceals behind its visage simply too much that was creative, enduring, and resolute. ’ (Daniel Goffman, The Ottoman Empire and Early Modern Europe (2002), p. 127)