Page One
Page Two
Page Three
Ottoman
Society
|
The Ottomans: From Frontier Warriors To
Empire Builders
Author: Robert Guisepi
Date: 1992
For centuries before the rise of the Ottoman dynasty in the 13th and
14th
centuries, Turkic-speaking peoples from central Asia had played key
roles in
Islamic civilization as soldiers and administrators, often in the
service of
the Abbasid caliphs. In fact, the collapse of the Seljuk Turkic
kingdom of Rum
in eastern Anatolia in Asia Minor, following the invasion by the
Mongols in
1243 described in Chapter 20, opened the way for the Ottomans' rise
to power.
The Mongols raided but did not directly rule Anatolia, which fell
into a
chaotic period of warfare between petty, would-be successor states
to the
Seljuk sultans. Turkic peoples, both those fleeing the Mongols and
those in
search of easy booty, flooded into the region in the last decades of
the 13th
century. One of these peoples, called the Ottomans after an early
leader named
Osman, came to dominate the rest, and within decades they had begun
to build a
new empire based in Anatolia.
By the 1350s, the Ottomans had advanced from their strongholds in
Asia
Minor across the Bosporus straits into Europe. Thrace was quickly
conquered
and by the end of the century large portions of the Balkans had been
added to
their rapidly expanding territories. The Ottoman rise to power was
severely,
but only temporarily set back in 1402, when the armies of Timur
swept into
Anatolia and defeated the Ottoman sultan Bayazid at Angora. For
nearly a
decade thereafter the region was torn by civil war between Bayazid's
sons,
each hoping to occupy his father's throne. The victory of Mehmed I
led to the
reunification of the empire and new conquests in both Europe and
Asia Minor.
In moving into Europe in the mid-14th century, the Ottomans had
bypassed
rather than conquered the great city of Constantinople, long the
capital of
the once-powerful Byzantine Empire. By the mid-15th century, the
Ottomans, who
had earlier alternated between alliances and warfare with the
Byzantines, were
strong enough to undertake the capture of the well-fortified city.
For seven
weeks in the spring of 1453, the army of Mehmed II, "The Conqueror,"
which
numbered well over 100,000, assaulted the triple ring of land walls
that had
protected the city for centuries. The undermanned forces of the
defenders
repulsed attack after attack until the sultan ordered his gunners to
batter a
portion of the walls with their massive siege cannon. Wave after
wave of
Ottoman troops struck at the gaps in the defenses that had been cut
by the
guns, overwhelmed the defenders, and raced into the city to loot and
pillage
for the three days that Mehmed had promised as their reward for
victory.
In the two centuries after the conquest of Constantinople, the
armies of
a succession of able Ottoman rulers extended the empire into Syria
and Egypt,
across North Africa, thus bringing under their rule the bulk of the
Arab
world. The empire also spread through the Balkans into Hungary in
Europe, and
around the Black and Red Seas. The Ottomans also became a formidable
naval
power in the Mediterranean Sea. Powerful Ottoman galley fleets made
it
possible to capture major island bases on Rhodes, Crete, and Cyprus;
to drive
the Venetians and Genoese from much of the eastern Mediterranean;
and to
threaten southern Italy with invasion on a number of occasions. From
their
humble origins as frontier vassals, the Ottomans had risen to become
the
protectors of the Islamic heartlands and the scourge of Christian
Europe. As
late as 1683, Ottoman armies were able to lay siege to the capital
of the
Austrian Habsburg dynasty at Vienna. Even though the Ottoman Empire
was in
decline by this point in time and the threat the assault posed to
Vienna was
far less serious than a previous attack in the early 16th century,
the
Ottomans remained a major force in European politics until the late
19th
century.
A State Geared To Warfare
Befitting an empire that had been founded and extended to spread
Islam
through the waging of the jihad, or holy war, military leaders
played a
dominant role in the Ottoman state and the economy of the empire was
geared to
warfare and expansion. The Turkic cavalrymen, who were chiefly
responsible for
the Ottomans' early conquests from the 13th to the 16th centuries,
gradually
developed into a warrior aristocracy. They were granted control over
land and
peasant producers in annexed areas for the support of their often
sizeable
households and numerous military retainers. From the 15th century
onward,
members of the warrior class also vied with religious leaders and
administrators drawn from other social groups for control of the
ever-expanding Ottoman bureaucracy. As the power of the warrior
aristocracy
shrank at the center, they sought to build up regional and local
bases of
support that inevitably competed with the sultans and central
bureaucracy for
revenue and labor control.
A considerable portion of the economic resources that the Ottoman
sultans
managed to control themselves was funneled into maintaining the
massive armies
required both to sustain expansion and protect the territories the
Ottomans
had won from rivals in all directions. From the mid-15th century,
the imperial
armies were increasingly dominated by infantry divisions made up of
troops
called Janissaries. Most of the Janissaries had been forcibly
conscripted as
adolescent boys in conquered areas, such as the Balkans, where the
majority of
the population retained its Christian faith. Sometimes the boys'
parents had
willingly turned their sons over to the Ottoman recruiters because
of the
opportunities for advancement that came with service to the Ottoman
sultans.
Though legally slaves, the youths were given fairly extensive
schooling for
the time and converted to Islam. Some of them went on to serve in
the palace
or bureaucracy, but most became Janissaries.
Because the Janissaries controlled the artillery and firearms that
became
increasingly vital to Ottoman success in warfare with both Christian
and
Muslim adversaries, they rapidly became the most powerful component
in the
Ottoman military machine. Their growing importance was another
factor
contributing to the steady decline of the role of the aristocratic
cavalrymen.
Just like the mercenary forces that had earlier served the caliphs
of Baghdad,
the Janissaries eventually sought to translate military service into
political
influence. By the late 15th century they were deeply involved in
court
politics; by the mid-16th century they had the power to depose
sultans and
decide which one of a dying ruler's sons would mount the throne.
The Sultans And Their Court
The sultans were nominally absolute monarchs, but even the most
powerful
sultan maintained his position by playing factions in the warrior
elite off
each other and the warriors as a whole against the Janissaries and
other
groups. Chief among the latter were the Islamic religious scholars
and legal
experts, who retained many of the administrative functions they had
held under
the Arab caliphs of earlier centuries. In addition to Muslim
traders, commerce
within the empire was in the hands of Christian and Jewish trading
groups, who
as dhimmis, or "peoples of the Book," were under the protection of
the Ottoman
rulers. The sultans were also responsible for the prosperity of
their subjects
and for upholding Islamic law within their domains. Though they have
often
been depicted as brutal and corrupt despots in Western writings, the
Ottoman
sultans, especially in the early centuries of their sway, were
frequently very
capable rulers. Ottoman conquest often meant effective
administration and tax
relief for the peoples of areas annexed to the empire. This was true
for the
peasants throughout much of the Balkans, whose Christian overlords
had
oppressed them with excessive tax and service demands in the decades
before
the Ottoman takeover.
Like the Abbasid caliphs, the Ottoman sultans grew more and more
distant
from their subjects as their empire increased in size and wealth. In
their
splendid marble palaces and pleasure gardens, surrounded by large
numbers of
slaves and the many wives and concubines of their harems, Ottoman
rulers
followed elaborate court rituals based on those of earlier
Byzantine, Persian,
and Arab dynasts. Day- to-day administration was carried out by a
large
bureaucracy headed by a grand vizier (wazir in Arabic), the overall
head of
the imperial administration, who often held more real power than the
sultan
himself. Early sultans took an active role in political decisions
and often
personally led their armies into battle. Their sons were usually
made
provincial administrators or military commanders. This practice gave
the
potential successors to the ruler vital leadership training, and it
does much
to explain the high quality of many of the Ottoman monarchs until
the late
16th century.
Like earlier Muslim dynasties, however, the Ottomans suffered
greatly
because they inherited Islamic principles of political succession
that
remained vague and contested. The existence of many talented and
experienced
claimants to the throne meant constant danger of civil strife. The
death of a
sultan could, and increasingly did, lead to protracted warfare among
his sons.
Defeated claimants sometimes fled to the domains of Christian or
Muslim rulers
hostile to the Ottomans, thereby becoming rallying points for
military
campaigns against the son who had managed to gain the throne. The
uncertainty
of succession and threat of civil strife led some of the early
sultans to have
all their brothers and other potential family rivals put to death at
the time
of their accession to the throne. The extent to which fratricide was
practiced, however, was greatly exaggerated by the Ottomans'
Christian
adversaries. From about 1600, rival princes and other possible
claimants to
the throne were usually confined to the palace and harem, rather
than being
put to death.
Constantinople Restored And The Flowering Of Ottoman Culture
An empire that encompassed so many and diverse cultures from Europe,
Africa, and Asia naturally varied greatly from one province to the
next in its
social arrangements, artistic production, and physical appearance.
But the
Ottomans' ancient and cosmopolitan capital at Constantinople richly
combined
the disparate elements of their extensive territories. Like the
Byzantine
Empire as a whole, Constantinople had fallen on hard times in the
centuries
before the Ottoman conquest in 1453. Soon after Mehmed II's armies
had
captured and sacked the city, however, the Ottoman ruler set about
restoring
its ancient glory. He had the cathedral of Saint Sophia converted
into one of
the grandest mosques in the Islamic world, and new mosques and
palaces were
built throughout the city, benefiting from architectural advances
the Ottomans
derived from the Byzantine heritage. Aqueducts were constructed from
the
surrounding hills to supply the growing population with water,
markets were
reopened, and the city's defenses were repaired. Each of the sultans
who ruled
in the centuries after Mehmed strove to be remembered for his
efforts to
beautify the capital. The most prominent additions were further
mosques that
represent some of the most sublime contributions of the Ottomans to
Islamic
and human civilization. The most spectacular of these was the
Suleymaniye,
built by one of the most successful of the sultans, Suleyman the
Magnificent
(1520-1566). Though it smacks a good deal of hometown pride, the
following
description by a 17th-century Ottoman chronicler of the reaction of
some
Christian visitors to the mosque conveys a sense of the awe that the
structure
still evokes:
The humble writer of these lines once himself saw ten Frankish
infidels
skilful [sic] in geometry and architecture, who, when the
door-keeper had
changed their shoes for slippers, and had introduced them into the
mosque
for the purpose of showing it to them, laid their finger on their
mouths,
and each bit his finger from astonishment when they saw the
minarets; but
when they beheld the dome they tossed up their hats and cried Maria!
Maria! and on observing the four arches which supported the dome . .
.
they could not find terms to express their admiration, and the ten .
. .
remained a full hour looking with astonishment on those arches. [One
of
them said] that nowhere was so much beauty, external and internal,
to be
found united, and that in the whole of Frangistan [Christian Europe]
there was not a single edifice which could be compared to this.
In addition to the mosques, sultans and powerful administrators
built
mansions, rest houses, religious schools, and hospitals throughout
the city.
Both public and private gardens further beautified the capital,
which Ottoman
writers were inclined to compare to paradise itself. The city and
its suburbs
stretched along both sides of the Bosporus, the narrow strait that
separates
Europe from Asia. Its harbors and the Golden Horn, a triangular bay
that
formed the northern boundary of the city, were crowded with merchant
ships
from ports throughout the Mediterranean and the Black Sea.
Constantinople's
great bazaars were filled with merchants and travelers from
throughout the
empire and places as distant as England and Malaya. They offered the
seasoned
shopper all manner of produce from the spices of the East Indies and
the ivory
of Africa to slaves and forest products from Russia and fine carpets
from
Persia. Coffeehouses - places where males gathered to smoke tobacco
(introduced from America in the 17th century by English merchants),
gossip, do
business, and play chess - were found in all sections of the city
and were
pivotal to the social life of the capital. The coffeehouses also
played a
major role in the cultural life of Constantinople as centers where
poets and
scholars could congregate, read their latest works aloud, and debate
about
politics and the merits of each other's ideas.
Beneath the ruling classes a sizeable portion of the population of
Constantinople and other Ottoman cities belonged to the merchant and
artisan
classes. The Ottoman regime closely regulated both commercial
exchanges and
handicraft production. Government inspectors were employed to ensure
that
standard weights and measures were used, to license the opening of
new shops
and regulate the entry of apprentice artisans into the trades, and
to inspect
the quality of the goods they produced. Like their counterparts in
medieval
European towns, the artisans were organized into guilds. Guild
officers set
craft standards, arbitrated disputes between their members, provided
financial
assistance for needy members, and even arranged popular
entertainments, which
were often linked to religious festivals. The guilds of Ottoman
towns were
much more closely supervised by government officials, and a wider
array of
occupational groups - including entertainers, prostitutes, and even
ordinary
laborers - were organized into guilds than was normally the case in
Europe.
The early Ottomans had written in Persian, while Arabic remained an
important language for works on law and religion throughout the
empire's
history. But by the 17th century the Turkish language of the Ottoman
court had
become the preferred mode of expression for poets and historians as
well as
the language of the Ottoman bureaucracy. In writing, as in the fine
arts, the
Ottomans' achievements have been somewhat overshadowed by those of
their
contemporary Persian and Indian rivals. Nonetheless, the authors,
artists, and
craftsmen of the Ottoman Empire have left a considerable legacy,
particularly
in poetry, ceramics, carpet manufacturing, and above all in
architecture.
The Problem Of Ottoman Decline
Much of the literature on the Ottoman Empire concentrates on its
slow
decline from the champion of the Muslim world and the great
adversary of
Christendom to the "sick man" of Europe in the 18th and 19th
centuries. This
approach provides a very skewed view of Ottoman history as a whole.
Traced
from its origins in the late 13th century, the Ottoman state is one
of the
great success stories in human political history. Vigorous and
expansive until
the late 17th century, the Ottomans were able to ward off the
powerful enemies
that surrounded their domains on all sides for nearly four
centuries. The
dynasty endured for over 600 years - a feat matched by no other in
all human
history.
From one perspective the long Ottoman decline, which officials and
court
historians actively discussed from the mid-17th century onward,
reflects the
great strength of the institutions on which the empire was built.
Despite
internal revolts and periodic conflicts with such powerful foreign
rivals as
the Russian, Austrian, Spanish, and Safavid empires, the Ottomans
ruled into
the 20th century. Yet centuries earlier the empire had reached the
limits of
its expansive power, and by the late 17th century the long retreat
from
Russia, Europe, and the Arab lands had begun. In a sense, some
contraction was
inevitable. Even when it was at the height of its power, the empire
was too
large to be maintained given the resource base that the sultans had
at their
disposal and the primitive state of transport and communications in
the
preindustrial era.
Internal Weaknesses And Imperial Decline
The Ottoman state had been built on war and steady territorial
expansion.
As possibilities for new conquests ran out and lands began to be
lost to the
Ottomans' Christian and Muslim enemies, the means of maintaining the
oversized
bureaucracy and army shrank markedly. The decline in the
effectiveness of the
administrative system that held the empire together was signaled by
the
rampant growth of corruption among Ottoman officials. The venality
and
incompetence of state bureaucrats in turn prompted regional and
local
officials - in provinces where the population was predominantly
European and
Arab as well as those with a Turkish majority - to retain increasing
amounts
of revenue for their own purposes. Revenues that were retained at
the local
and regional level were, of course, lost to those who sought to run
and defend
the empire as a whole.
Poorly regulated by the central government, many local officials,
who
also controlled large landed estates, squeezed the peasants and the
laborers
who worked their lands for additional taxes and services. At times
the
oppressive demands of local officials and estate owners sparked
rebellions.
But more frequently they caused the hard-pressed peasantry to
abandon their
holdings and flee to those of less rapacious lords or to become
vagabonds,
bandits, or beggars in the cities. Both responses resulted in the
abandonment
of cultivated lands and social dislocations that further drained the
resources
of the empire.
From the 17th century on, the forces that undermined the empire from
below were compounded by growing problems at the center of imperial
administration. The practice of assigning the royal princes
administrative or
military positions, in order to prepare them to rule, died out.
Instead,
possible successors to the throne were kept like hostages in special
sections
of the palace, where they remained until one of them ascended the
throne. The
other princes and potential rivals were also, in effect, imprisoned
for life
in the palace. Though it might have made the reigning sultan more
secure, this
solution to the problem of contested succession produced monarchs
far less
prepared to rule than those in the formative centuries of the
dynasty. The
great warrior-emperors of early Ottoman history gave way, with some
important
exceptions, to weak and indolent rulers, addicted to drink, drugs,
and the
pleasures of the harem. In many instances the later sultans were
little more
than pawns in the power struggles between the viziers and other
powerful
officials, and the leaders of the increasingly influential Janissary
corps.
Because the imperial apparatus had been geared to strong and
absolute rulers,
the decline in the caliber of Ottoman emperors had devastating
effects on the
strength of the empire as a whole. Civil strife increased and the
discipline
and leadership of the armies on which the empire depended for
survival
deteriorated.
Military Reverses And The Ottoman Retreat
Debilitating changes within the empire were occurring at a time when
challenges from without were growing rapidly. The Ottomans had made
very
effective use of artillery and firearms in building their empire.
But their
addiction to huge siege guns and the Janissaries' determination to
block all
military changes that might jeopardize the power they had been able
to gain
within the state caused the Ottomans to fall farther and farther
behind their
European rivals in the critical art of waging war. With the
widespread
introduction of light field artillery into the armies of the
European powers
in the 17th century, Ottoman losses on the battlefield multiplied
rapidly and
the threat they posed for the West began to recede.
On the sea the Ottomans were eclipsed as early as the 16th century.
The
end of their dominance was presaged by their defeat by a combined
Spanish-Venetian fleet at Lepanto in 1571. Though the Ottomans had
completely
rebuilt their war fleet within a year after the battle and soon
launched an
assault on North Africa that preserved that area for Islam, their
control of
the eastern Mediterranean had been lost. Even more ominously, in the
decades
before Lepanto, the Ottomans and the Muslim world had been
out-flanked by the
Portuguese seafarers down and then around the coast of Africa. The
failure in
the early 1500s of the Ottomans and their Muslim allies in the
Indian Ocean to
drive the Portuguese from Asian waters proved far more disastrous
than Ottoman
defeats in the Mediterranean.
Portuguese naval victories in the Indian Ocean revealed the
obsolescence
of the Ottoman galley fleets and Mediterranean-style warships more
generally.
The trading goods, particularly spices, that the Portuguese carried
back to
Europe around Africa enriched the Ottomans' Christian rivals. In
addition, the
fact that a sizeable portion of the flow of these products was no
longer
transmitted to European ports through Muslim trading centers in the
eastern
Mediterranean meant that merchants and tax collectors in the Ottoman
Empire
lost critical profits and revenues. As if this were not enough, from
the late
16th century on, large amounts of silver flowed into the Ottomans'
lands from
mines worked by Amerindian laborers in the Spanish possessions of
the New
World. This sudden influx of bullion into the rather rigid and slow
growing
economy of the Ottoman Empire set off a long-term inflationary trend
that
further undermined the finances of the empire.
Several able sultans took measures to shore up the crumbling
imperial
edifice in the 17th century. The collapse of the Safavid dynasty in
Persia and
conflicts between the European powers at this time also gave the
Ottomans hope
that their earlier dominance might be restored, but their reprieve
proved
temporary. With the scientific, technological, and commercial
changes
occurring in Europe and the overseas expansion that these
innovations had made
possible, the Ottomans were falling at an accelerating rate behind
their
Christian rivals in most areas of endeavor, but most critically in
trade and
making war. The sense the Ottomans inherited from their Arab,
Persian, and
Turkic predecessors that little of what happened in Europe was
important
prevented them from taking seriously the revolutionary changes
transforming
western Europe. The intense conservatism of powerful groups like the
Janissaries and, to a lesser extent, the religious scholars
reinforced this
fatal myopia. Through much of the 17th and 18th centuries, these
groups proved
able to block most of the Western-inspired innovations that
reform-minded
sultans or their advisors sought to introduce. As a result of this
narrow and
potentially dangerous view, the isolated and increasingly fossilized
Ottoman
imperial system proved incapable of checking the forces that were
steadily
making for its dismemberment.
Abbasid Comparisons And The Ottoman Achievement
We have encountered many of the forces that led to the decline of
the
Ottoman Empire in earlier Islamic history. In fact, in many ways the
Ottoman
decline seems to be a replay of the earlier fall of the Abbasid
caliphate. At
the center of both empires, the forces that sapped their strength
included the
decreasing ability and reduced powers of the rulers, court intrigues
and
succession disputes, the growing involvement of mercenary soldiers
in
politics, and bureaucratic corruption. Away from the capitals at
Baghdad and
Constantinople, revolts by peasants and townsmen oppressed by the
landed
classes, the loss of territory to internal rebels, and defeats in
wars by
foreign powers all contributed to imperial decline.
Though these parallels are striking, they should not blind us to
crucial
differences between the two cases. These differences arise in part
from
changes in the international and domestic conditions that each
dynasty, which
were widely separated in time, had to face. The growing military and
economic
competition of European rivals, for example, had much more to do
with the
Ottoman decline than the Abbasid, in which (despite the Crusades)
the
Europeans did not play a critical role. But they also suggest that
the
Ottomans had learned a good deal from Abbasid mistakes and improved
considerably upon their predecessors' performance.
To begin with, the real power of the Ottoman rulers persisted much
longer
than that of the Abbasid caliphs - two to three centuries as opposed
to three
or four generations. In part this was due to the higher caliber of
the early
Ottoman sultans, which can be traced to the better training that the
princes
of the royal house were given in the first phase of Ottoman history.
In
addition, the Ottoman bureaucracy was larger, better organized, and
more
dedicated than its Abbasid counterpart. It was therefore better able
to
administer effectively the various parts of the empire and funnel
resources to
the central government, at least in the early centuries of Ottoman
rule. The
Ottoman military machine was much better prepared, disciplined, and
led than
the motley alliance of forces that had brought the Abbasids to
power. In the
early centuries of Ottoman expansion, a military elite from a single
ethnic
stock, committed to a common project of religious expansion,
directed military
operations and discouraged infighting. By contrast, the Abbasid
alliance soon
broke apart, with Sunni fighting Shi'a and individual commanders
seeking to
create their own kingdoms. In both cases mercenary forces, which
were employed
to strengthen the military establishment, became deeply embroiled in
politics.
But the Janissaries were, initially at least, more effectively
controlled by
the Ottoman rulers. They also took much longer to become a major
political
force than the Turkic mercenaries who threatened the Abbassid throne
soon
after they first entered the service of the caliphate.
Interestingly, the greater political and military success of the
Ottomans
did not translate into a higher level of intellectual or artistic
achievement.
Though the Abbasid dynasty was weaker and far less expansive than
the Ottoman,
its reign witnessed a burst of creativity in the arts, sciences, and
philosophy that has seldom been matched by any human society. Though
the
Ottomans made significant contributions to Islamic architecture,
literature,
and various crafts, their accomplishments lacked the range,
originality, and
sheer magnitude of those of the Abbasid age. In the broadest sense,
the
Ottoman legacy was one in which the restoration and preservation of
the
Islamic heritage was foremost. For centuries, Ottoman power brought
a high
level of internal peace and protection from outside invaders to the
Islamic
heartlands. But the price of security was an inflated bureaucracy
and military
establishment that proved both an increasing burden for peasants and
merchants
and a major barrier to creativity and innovation. With the Muslims'
old
adversaries, the Europeans, forging ahead, the price paid would
prove a very
high one indeed.
Back to Main menu
A
project by History World International
World History Center
|