Ottoman Empire Revision Notes

Ottoman Empire Revision

Metin Kunt and Christine Woodhead (ed). Suleyman the Magnificent and his Age (Longman, 1995).

Chapter One: Metin Kunt ‘State and sultan up to the age of Suleyman: frontier principality to world empire’.

• What is Suleyman’s empire?

• Not a coherent geographical region.

  • There was no word for ‘Turkey’ in the Ottoman language, this is not a Turkish Empire.

  • Muslim Ottomans call themselves ‘Rumi’.

  • Devlet-i al-i Osman: ‘the domains of the house of Osman’: the Osmanli dynasty is the state.

• Gazi ideology

  • Fighting not simply as an unprincipled raider, but for the glory of Islam.

  • Murad I secures for the Ottomans the title of the only true gazis.

    • Gaza was the greatest virtues; Ottomans the most virtuous gazis.

    • Significance

      • Bound the beys of Anatolia and Balkans to the Ottoman empire.

• Ruler’s household

  • Mamluks

    • Foreign servitors captured in battle from the infidels.

    • The Ottomans are cleverer

      • They take recruits from inside the realms.

  • Military

    • Janissaries

      • Household infantry

  • Most prestigious are the cavalry divisions

    • Sipahi, Silahdar, uleficiyan, gureba

      • Staffed by palace pages recruited through devşirme

• How do the Ottomans takeover so easily?

  • Social features

    • Anatolia Turkmen emirates are similar in character

    • Syncretic practice abounds

      • Though Islam was perfect, it was not much different from Judaism and Christianity.

    • Networks

      • Ahi organisations and guilds, of which the sultan was a member.

  • Religion

    • Sufi communities

      • These guys reinforce the teachings of the religious elite, the ulema.

      • Popular

        • Non-dogmatic, exuberant brand of Islam mean they connect well with brotherhoods.

  • Formation of dervish convents and merchant afii lodges.

  • Taxation

    • Yes

      • Peasant pay the jizye capitation tax, but they don’t have to pay any feudal obligatory money anymore.

• Mehmed

  • Establishes an Ottoman imperial tradition

    • The Ottoman sultan

      • Styled as an Islamic sultan, a great khan of Inner Asia and a Roman Caesar

  • Updates legal corpus

  • Expands sultanic power to the civil-religious sphere through taking over of vakif.

  • Does so through the creation of a prestigious and large imperial household.

• (II) Towards Suleyman’s World Empire

• Selim’s empire

  • There are people threatening the Ottoman Empire

    • The Safavid, Shah Ismail I

      • 1514,

        • Chaldiran, he obliterates the Safavid army and captures Tabriz.

      • A victory of janissary muskets and field artillery firepower.

  • Swerves south

    • 1516-17

      • Relgious

        • Seizes Mecca and Medina: makes himself defender of the holy cities and thus the most important ruler in the Islamic world.

      • Economic

        • Suez is the link to the Indian Ocean and Asian spice trade.

• Suleyman’s Empire

  • Rhodes, Belgrade, Mohacs,

  • Sea

    • Barbarossa destroys a Christian fleet in 1538 and captures Tunis.

  • 1566

    • Final campaign

      • Szigetvar.

• (III) The Ottoman State as a Dynastic Empire

• Sultan Suleyman

  • Claim to be the universal defender of Islam, the caliph.

• Sultan’s revenues

  • Generated from the havass-I humayun

    • Revenues from developed towns and lucrative mining nd forestry districts

  • A stream higher than any Vizier’s.

• Who are the ruling elite?

  • These men are Ottomans

    • Only first generation Muslims!

  • Not in an ethnic sense, but a cultural-political sense.

  • A few ethnically Turkish

    • But not given high office really.

• Institutions

• The Divan

  • Not household but ‘state’ officers

    • Viziers

      • Former district governors, governor-generals of provinces

      • Given a dirlik, a ‘living’ to live off

    • High-state judges

      • One from Rumeli, one from Anatolia

    • Jurists

      • Interpreters of sultanic kanun law and responsible for edicts, firmans and other documents.

    • Kadis

      • State judges

      • Get their money from legal fees that they hear in court.

• The umera system and payment

  • These are the governor-generals and military commanders

  • Payment

    • Timar

      • Assignation of annual revenues, in cash, from a particular village or villages to pay for his needs while he campaigns.

  • Commanders

    • Get market or urban revenues.

  • The more dirliks a commander has, the more men he is expected to field.

    • A Vizier might be so lucrative in dirliks he must field thousands of men.

• This system makes one a participant in the Ottoman state.

• Household

  • Reaches 30,000 in the reign of Suleyman.

    • Implicit of the extraordinary wealth in the havass-I humayun.

• The Ottoman State

• Thus,

  • The state has the sultan at its apex, is not dominated by one ethnic group, has no geographical barriers and most administrators come from his household itself.

• Inclusive polity

  • Sultan’s power reached his lowliest subject through his officials, umera and ulema and can provide protection and justice.

    • His kanun is sophisticated, open to all subjects and technically, all could appeal to the imperial council.

  • Justice

    • The kanun-I Osmani or ‘Ottoman law’ is administered throughout the empire

• A dynastic empire

  • Virtuous

    • Because no-one group is favoured.

  • Problematic

    • Succession

      • No principle of primogeniture or consanguinity which they talk about in France.

      • ‘May the best man win’.

    • Irritable princes

      • Selim I dethroned his father; Bayezid was rumoured to have overthrown his.

    • Suleyman himself

      • Intervenes

        • In 1553, has his own son Mustafa strangled.

Metin Kunt, Introduction

• Dirliks

  • A dirlik-holder, no matter how small, was an independent official.

    • The official uses this to maintain his household, pay his wages, officers and retinues.

• Different sorts of revenue collectors

  • District governor

    • May command the troops throughout the whole sancak, but only directly runs the villages within his hass income.

    • If his ambit comes within the hass of a provincial governor, or indeed, the havass-I humayun, than they take precedence.

• Administrative activity, regularised by the provincial kadi magistrates.

• Dirliks

  • Virtues

    • Not feudal – dirlik holders don’t own the land itself, just the revenues coming from it.

    • Non-hereditary.

    • ...

Buy the full version of these notes or essay plans and more in our General History VIII: 1500 - 1618 Notes.