OTTOMAN EMPIRE


Meaning of OTTOMAN EMPIRE in English

an empire created by Turkish tribes in Anatolia that lasted from the decline of the Byzantine Empire in the 14th century until the establishment of Turkey as a republic in 1922. It was named for Osman (Arabic: 'Uthman), an emir (prince) in Bithynia who began the conquest of neighbouring regions and who founded the empire's dynasty about 1300. The first period of Ottoman history, from 1300 to 1481, was one of almost continuous expansion through war, alliance, and outright purchase of territory. Under Osman and his successors Orhan (reigned 132460), Murad I (136089), and Bayezid I (13891402), nearly all of Anatolia was conquered. Alliances with various factions within the Byzantine Empire won the Ottomans a foothold in Europe about 1346, and from Gallipoli they moved into Thrace, Macedonia, Bulgaria, and Serbia. At Kosovo in 1389 Murad defeated the Balkan allies to complete Ottoman domination of that territory. Bayezid further strengthened Ottoman rule and was awarded the title of sultan by the caliph of Cairo. The rapid advance of Ottoman power attracted the notice of the Tatar leader Timur, however, who turned from his conquest of India to protect his western flank. He defeated an Ottoman army at Ankara in 1402. Timur left as quickly as he had come, but years passed before the Ottomans could resume their conquests. Of Bayezid's four sons, Mehmed (Muhammad) I emerged as sultan in 1413; under him and his successors Murad II (142144; 144651) and Mehmed II (144446; 145181), the empire reasserted control of Europe south of the Danube, defeating a crusader army at Varna in 1444. In 1453 Constantinople (now Istanbul) was taken, and in subsequent years Morea, Trebizond, Bosnia, Albania, the Crimea, and other areas were conquered or annexed. Of the many unique military and administrative forms evolved by the Ottomans, the most notable included the devsirme system, whereby Christian youths from the Balkans were drafted and converted to Islam for a lifetime of service. The military arm supplied by the devsirme system was the Janissary corps, an infantry group attached to the person of the sultan. Mehmed II developed the practice of requiring all members of the government and army, Turkish or Balkan, Muslim or non-Muslim, to accept the status of personal slave of the sultan. By that means he hoped to ensure the indivisibility of power, with the entire ruling class sworn to absolute obedience. Under Selim I (151220) Ottoman expansion resumed. His defeat of the Mamluks in 151617 doubled the size of the empire at a stroke by adding to it Syria, Palestine, Egypt, and Algeria. The reign of his son Sleyman I (152066), known in Europe as the Magnificent, was a golden age of Ottoman power and grandeur. He conquered Hungary from the Habsburgs, annexed Tripoli, extended the empire southeastward through Mesopotamia to the Persian Gulf, and made the Ottoman navy dominant in the eastern Mediterranean. After Sleyman's reign, decline set in. Even though territorial expansion continued yet a whileMurad III (157495) conquered the Caucasus and seized Azerbaijan from Iranadministrative and social weaknesses became insidious. The decline of the empire after Sleyman is attributed to the increasing lack of ability of the sultans who followed him, the ever-increasing power of the devsirme class and the tensions it created within the ruling class, the erosion of Ottoman industry, the decline of Ottoman-controlled trade routes with the development of better navigation, and sudden leaps in population and the subsequent decline of urban centres. Reforms instituted in the 17th century were too weak and narrow to arrest the decline. Meanwhile, the powerful nation-states arising in Europe during this period formed alliances to drive the Ottoman off the continent. Decline accelerated in the 18th century, which saw the decay of rural administration into small, feudal-like states and increased unrest in the cities, disrupting food supplies and leading to widespread famine. Few of the innovations in technology that underlay Europe's prosperity made their way into the empire. Early in the 18th century some aristocrats did adopt Western styles (the Tulip Period), and later in the century Selim III tried to modernize the government; but in a reactionary revolt led by Mustafa IV in 1807, the empire returned to traditional ways. By the accession of Mahmud II in 1808, the Ottoman situation appeared desperate. Local authorities openly opposed the central government, while the empire was at war with both England and Russia. In the next few decades Mahmud II reestablished some order with military modernization and governmental reorganization, but the boundaries of the empire continued to shrink. Mahmud's sons, Abdlmecid I and Abdlaziz, enacted a series of liberal and modernizing reforms called the Tanzimat, which were widely viewed in the West as an effort to encourage friendly relations with European powers. Among the reforms were the first comprehensive education system and the westernization of commercial, maritime, and penal codes. The centralization of power removed all checks on the power of the emperor, but in 1876 Abdlhamid II agreed to the first constitution in any Islamic country. Two years later, by the Treaty of San Stefano and negotiations at the Congress of Berlin, the empire was forced to give up Romania, Serbia, Montenegro, Bulgaria, Cyprus, and other territories. Abdlhamid was able to hold the empire together for the rest of the century by reminding Europeans that the Turks within their own borders were kept peaceful by its preservation, but the final years of his reign were marked by revolts, notably that of the Young Turks in 1908. The Balkan wars of 191213 all but completed the empire's expulsion from Europe. After disastrous defeat in World War I and a revolution immediately after, the 36th and final Ottoman emperor, Mehmed VI Vahideddin, was overthrown in 1922 and modern Turkey was formed. empire created by Turkish tribes in Anatolia. One of the most powerful states in the world during the 15th and 16th centuries, it spanned more than 600 years and came to an end only in 1922, when it was replaced by the Turkish Republic and various successor states in southeastern Europe and the Middle East. At its height the empire included most of southeastern Europe to the gates of Vienna, including modern Hungary, Serbia, Bosnia, Romania, Greece, and Ukraine; Iraq, Syria, Israel, and Egypt; North Africa as far west as Algeria; and most of the Arabian Peninsula. The term Ottoman is a dynastic appellation derived from Osman (Arabic: 'Uthman), the nomadic Turkmen chief who founded both the dynasty and the empire. Malcolm Edward Yapp Additional reading The classical studies of Ottoman history based on Ottoman and European sources are Joseph von Hammer (Joseph, Freiherr von Hammer-Purgstall), Geschichte des osmanischen Reiches, 10 vol. (182735, reprinted 1963), also available in a French translation, Histoire de l'Empire ottoman depuis son origine jusqu' nos jours, 18 vol. (183543); and Johann Wilhelm Zinkeisen, Geschichte des osmanischen Reiches in Europa, 7 vol. (184063), emphasizing Ottoman diplomatic and military history based on extensive use of European diplomatic archives and travelers' reports. More modern accounts include Stanford J. Shaw and E.K. Shaw, History of the Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey, 2 vol. (197677); Robert Mantran (ed.), Histoire de l'Empire Ottoman (1989), a collection of studies by France's ablest Ottomanists; and Halil Inalcik and Donald Quataert (eds.), An Economic and Social History of the Ottoman Empire, 13001914 (1994). A popular account for the nonspecialist is Lord Kinross (Patrick Balfour, Baron Kinross), The Ottoman Centuries (1977). Ottoman rule in southeastern Europe is studied in L.S. Stavrianos, The Balkans Since 1453 (1958, reissued 1966); Peter F. Sugar, Southeastern Europe Under Ottoman Rule, 13541804 (1977); and Nicoara Beldiceanu, Le Monde Ottoman des Balkans, 14021566 (1976). The most useful atlases of the Ottoman Empire are Donald Edgar Pitcher, An Historical Geography of the Ottoman Empire from Earliest Times to the End of the Sixteenth Century (1972); and William C. Brice (ed.), An Historical Atlas of Islam (1981).Paul Wittek, The Rise of the Ottoman Empire (1938, reprinted 1971), a classic study of Ottoman origins in 13th- and 14th-century Anatolia, emphasizes the importance of the ghazi tradition in Ottoman expansion; while Rudy Paul Lindner, Nomads and Ottomans in Medieval Anatolia (1983), denies the ghazi thesis on the basis of more recent research. Halil Inalcik, The Ottoman Empire: The Classical Age, 13001600 (1973, reprinted 1994), is a scholarly survey of the early period. Ernst Werner, Die Geburt einer Grossmacht, die Osmanen (13001481), 4th rev. ed. (1985), is a general survey based on examination of Turkish and Western sources. M.A. Cook (ed.), A History of the Ottoman Empire to 1730 (1976), conveniently assembles the excellent articles in The Cambridge History of Islam and The New Cambridge Modern History relating to the Ottoman Empire. A work of fundamental importance is Halil Inalcik, Ottoman Methods of Conquest, Studia Islamica, 2:103129 (1954), describing the development of the vassal system and of toleration of non-Muslim communities as a means of gaining Ottoman conquests in southeastern Europe. P. Wittek, De la dfaite d'Ankara a la prise de Constantinople (un demi-sicle d'histoire ottomane), Revue des tudes Islamiques, 12(1):134 (1938), describes the Ottoman Interregnum (140213) and the means by which the Ottoman Empire was restored in the first half of the 15th century. Franz Babinger, Mehmed the Conqueror and His Time (1978), which is based mainly on European sources, emphasizes Ottoman relations with Europe under Mehmed II the Conqueror; but it should be read in conjunction with Halil Inalcik, Mehmed the Conqueror (14321481) and His Time, Speculum, 35:408427 (1960). Dorothy M. Vaughan, Europe and the Turk: A Pattern of Alliances, 13501700 (1954, reprinted 1976), studies diplomatic, economic, and cultural relations between the Ottoman Empire and Europe. Ottoman relations with Safavid Iran are studied in Sydney Nettleton Fisher, The Foreign Relations of Turkey, 14811512 (1948); George William Frederick Stripling, The Ottoman Turks and the Arabs, 15111574 (1942, reprinted 1977); Adel Allouche, The Origins and Development of the Ottoman-Safavid Conflict (906962/15001555) (1983); and Jean-Louis Bacqu-Grammont, Les Ottomans, les Safavides et leurs voisins (1987). The Ottomans in the Mediterranean world are described in Fernand Braudel, The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II, 2 vol. (197273; originally published in French, 2nd rev. ed., 1966), a brilliant study of economic problems and development in the Mediterranean area in the mid-16th century, stressing the importance of population problems, the results of the influx of precious metals from the New World, and shifts in international trade routes. mer Ltfi Barkan, Les Dportations comme mthode de peuplement et de colonisation dans l'Empire Ottoman, Revue de la Facult des Sciences conomiques de l'Universit d'Istanbul, 11(14):67131 (October 1949July 1950), provides a major study of Ottoman social movements in the 15th and 16th centuries written by the leading Turkish economic historian. Stephen A. Fischer-Galati, Ottoman Imperialism and German Protestantism, 15211555 (1959, reissued 1972), describes the role of the Ottoman threat in the development of the Reformation. Gunther Erich Rothenberg, The Austrian Military Border in Croatia, 15221747 (1960), studies Ottoman-Habsburg military relations. R.C. Anderson, Naval Wars in the Levant, 15591853 (1952), also treats military matters. Halil Inalcik, The Ottoman Empire: Conquest, Organization, and Economy (1978), and Capital Formation in the Ottoman Empire, The Journal of Economic History, 29(1):97140 (March 1969), are fundamental studies of internal Ottoman economic organization and development.Ottoman administration and society are treated in Joseph von Hammer (Joseph, Freiherr von Hammer-Purgstall), Des Osmanischen Reichs Staatsverfassung und Staatsverwaltung, 2 vol. (1815, reprinted 1977), a detailed study of Ottoman administrative organization in the 16th century. Hamilton Gibb and Harold Bowen, Islamic Society and the West, vol. 1 in 2 parts (1950), emphasizes Ottoman organization in the 18th century but adds considerable information on earlier periods based on examination of Turkish and Western sources. Stanford J. Shaw, The Financial and Administrative Organization and Development of Ottoman Egypt, 15171798 (1962), studies the Ottoman provincial and financial systems as applied in Egypt based on exhaustive research in Ottoman archivesit is summarized in Shaw's article Landholding and Land-Tax Revenues in Ottoman Egypt, in P.M. Holt (ed.), Political and Social Change in Modern Egypt (1968), pp. 91103. A.D. Alderson, The Structure of the Ottoman Dynasty (1956, reprinted 1982), details the Ottoman imperial institution and the development of the Ottoman dynasty. An exhaustive study of Ottoman political, economic, and social life in the 17th century is Robert Mantran, Istanbul dans la seconde moiti du XVIIe sicle (1962). Extensive accounts of popular customs are Suraiya Faroqhi, Towns and Townsmen of Ottoman Anatolia: Trade, Crafts, and Food Production in an Urban Setting, 15201650 (1984); Bernard Lewis, Istanbul and the Civilization of the Ottoman Empire (1963, reissued 1972); Raphaela Lewis, Everyday Life in Ottoman Turkey (1971, reissued 1988); and Fanny Davis, The Ottoman Lady: A Social History from 1718 to 1918 (1986). The Ottoman millet system is discussed in Stanford J. Shaw, The Jews of the Ottoman Empire and the Turkish Republic (1991); and Benjamin Braude and Bernard Lewis (eds.), Christians and Jews in the Ottoman Empire, 2 vol. (1982). Walter Livingston Wright, Jr. (trans. and ed.), Ottoman Statecraft (1935, reissued 1971), is a 17th-century Ottoman analysis of decline. Thomas M. Barker, Double Eagle and Crescent: Vienna's Second Turkish Siege and Its Historical Setting (1967), is a detailed study of the Eastern question relative to the Ottoman Empire in the late 17th century. Lavender Cassels, The Struggle for the Ottoman Empire, 17171740 (1966), discusses a similar topic in readable fashion. Mary Lucille Shay, The Ottoman Empire from 1720 to 1734 as Revealed in Despatches of the Venetian Baili (1944, reprinted 1978), describes Ottoman life during the Tulip Period, based on the reports of Venetian consuls in Istanbul. Heinrich Benedikt, Der Pascha-Graf Alexander von Bonneval, 16751747 (1959); M.S. Anderson, The Eastern Question, 17741923: A Study in International Relations (1966, reprinted 1991), an outline of diplomacy; and Richard F. Kreutel (trans.), Kara Mustafa vor Wien: 1683 aus der Sicht trkischer Quellen, trans. from Turkish, enlarged ed. prepared by Karl Teply (1982), are also of interest. Stanford J. Shaw, Between Old and New: The Ottoman Empire Under Sultan Selim III, 17891807 (1971), is a detailed study of the Ottoman reform effort in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, with an account of the diplomatic and military relations with Europe and of problems in the Balkan, Anatolian, and Arab provinces. Stanford Jay Shaw The peak of Ottoman power, 14811566 Domination of southeastern Europe and the Middle East Expansion of the Ottoman Empire. During the century that followed the reign of Mehmed II, the Ottoman Empire achieved the peak of its power and wealth. New conquests extended its domain well into central Europe and throughout the Arab portion of the old Islamic caliphate, and a new amalgam of political, religious, social, and economic organizations and traditions was institutionalized and developed into a living, working whole. Bayezid II The reign of Mehmed II's immediate successor, Bayezid II (14811512), was largely a period of rest. The previous conquests were consolidated, and many of the political, economic, and social problems caused by Mehmed's internal policies were resolved, leaving a firm foundation for the conquests of the 16th-century sultans. The economic stringencies imposed to finance Mehmed II's campaigns had led during the last year of his reign to a virtual civil war between the major factions in Istanbul, the devsirme party and the Turkish aristocracy. Bayezid was installed on the throne by the Janissaries because of their military domination of the capital, while his more militant brother Cem fled to Anatolia, where he led a revolt initially supported by the Turkish notables. Bayezid managed to conciliate the latter, however, by exposing to them his essentially pacific plans, which downgraded the devsirme, leaving Cem without major support. Cem then fled into exile in Mamluk Syria in the summer of 1481. He returned the following year with the help of the Mamluks and the last Turkmen ruler of Karaman, but his effort to secure the support of the Turkmen nomads failed because of their attraction to Bayezid's heterodox religious policies. Cem remained in exile, first at the court of the crusading Knights of Rhodes and then with the pope in Rome, until his death in 1495. European efforts to use him as the spearhead of a new crusade to regain Istanbul were unsuccessful. In the meantime, however, the threat that Cem might lead a foreign attack compelled Bayezid to concentrate on internal consolidation. Most of the property confiscated by his father for military campaigns was restored to its original owners. Equal taxes were established around the empire so that all subjects could fulfill their obligations to the government without the kind of disruption and dissatisfaction that had characterized the previous regime. Particularly important was the establishment of the avriz-i divaniye (war chest) tax, which provided for the extraordinary expenditures of war without special confiscations or heavy levies. The value of the coinage was restored, and Mehmed II's plans for economic expansion were at last brought to fruition. To this end thousands of Jews expelled from Spain by the Inquisition during the summer of 1492 were encouraged to immigrate to the Ottoman Empire. They settled particularly in Istanbul, Salonika, and Edirne, where they joined their coreligionists in a golden age of Ottoman Jewry that lasted well into the 17th century, when Ottoman decline and the rising power of European diplomats and merchants enabled them to promote the interests of the sultan's Christian subjects at the expense of Muslims and Jews alike. Bayezid II completed the effort begun by Mehmed II to replace the vassals with direct Ottoman administration throughout the empire. For the first time the central government regularly operated under a balanced budget. Culturally, Bayezid stimulated a strong reaction against the Christianizing trends of the previous half century. The Turkish language and Muslim traditions were emphasized. Since Bayezid himself was a mystic, he brought mystic rituals and teachings into the institutions and practices of orthodox Islam in order to counteract the increasing menace of heterodox Shi'ism among the tribes of eastern Anatolia. Though Bayezid preferred to maintain peacein order to have the time and resources to concentrate on internal developmenthe was forced into a number of campaigns by the exigencies of the period and the demands of his more militant devsirme followers. In Europe he rounded off the empire south of the Danube and Sava by taking Herzegovina (1483), leaving only Belgrade outside Ottoman control. The Hungarian king Matthias Corvinus (ruled 145890) was interested mainly in establishing his rule over Bohemia and agreed to peace with the Ottomans (1484), and, after his death, struggles for succession left this front relatively quiet for the remainder of Bayezid's reign. To the northeast the sultan pushed Ottoman territory north of the Danube, along the shores of the Black Sea, capturing in 1484 the ports of Kilia and Akkerman, which controlled the mouths of the Danube and Dniester. The Ottomans thus controlled the major entrepts of northern European trade with the Black Sea and Mediterranean. Because these advances conflicted with the ambitions of Poland, in 148384 war ensued, until the diversion of Poland by the threat of Muscovy under Ivan III the Great left this front quiet also after 1484. Bayezid then turned to the east, where previous conquests as far as the Euphrates had brought the Ottomans up to the Mamluk empire. Conflict over control of the small Turkmen principality of Dulkadir (Dhu al-Qadr), which controlled much of Cilicia and the mountains south of Lake Van, and an Ottoman desire to share in control of the Muslim holy cities of Mecca and Medina led to an intermittent war (148591). This war was inconclusive, however, and Bayezid's disinclination to commit major forces to the endeavour led to dissension and criticism on the part of his more militant followers. To counter this, Bayezid tried to use Hungarian internal dissension to take Belgrade, without success, and raiding forces sent into Transylvania, Croatia, and Carinthia were turned back. In 1495 Cem died and a new peace with Hungary left Bayezid's objectives unfulfilled, so he turned toward Venice, his other major European enemy. Venice had been encouraging revolts against the sultan in the Morea, Dalmatia, and Albania, which it had ceded to the Ottomans in 1479. It also gained control of Cyprus (1489) and built there a major naval base, which it refused to allow Bayezid to use against the Mamluks and instead used as a base for pirate raids against Ottoman shipping and shores, thus pointing up the island's strategic importance to the sultan. Bayezid also hoped to conquer the last Venetian ports in the Morea to establish bases for complete Ottoman naval control of the eastern Mediterranean. All these objectives, except control of Cyprus, were achieved in the war with Venice that followed in 14991503. The Ottoman fleet emerged for the first time as a major Mediterranean naval power, and the Ottomans became an integral part of European diplomatic relations. Bayezid never was able to use this situation to make new conquests in Europe, because the rise of revolts in eastern Anatolia occupied much of his attention during the last years of his reign. There the old conflict resumed between the autonomous, uncivilized nomads and the stable, settled Middle Eastern civilization of the Ottomans. The Turkmen nomads resisted the efforts of the Ottomans to expand their administrative control to all parts of the empire. In reaction to the orthodox Muslim establishment, the nomads developed a fanatical attachment to the leaders of the Sufi and Shi'ite mystic orders. The most successful of these were the Safavids of Ardabil, a Turkish mystic order that had immigrated there from eastern Anatolia along with seven Turkmen tribes (called Kizilbash [Redheads] because of their use of red headgear to symbolize their allegiance); the Safavids used a combined religious and military appeal to conquer most of Iran. Under the shah Isma'il I (150124), the Safavids sent missionaries throughout Anatolia, spreading a message of religious heresy and political revolt, not only among the tribesmen but also to cultivators and some urban elements, who began to see in this movement the answers to their own problems. A series of revolts resulted, which Bayezid was unable or unwilling to suppress because of his involvements in Europe and because his mystic preferences inclined him to sympathize with the religious message of the rebels. Finally, at the start of the 16th century, a general Anatolian uprising forced Bayezid into a major expedition (150203) that pushed the Safavids and many of their Turkmen followers into Iran. There the Safavids turned from orthodox Sufism to heterodox Shi'ism as a means of gaining the loyalty of the Persians to a Turkish dynasty. Isma'il continued, however, to spread his message as Sufi leader in Anatolia, leading to a second major revolt of his followers against the Ottomans (1511). All the grievances of the time coalesced into what was essentially a religious uprising against the central government, and only a major expedition led by the grand vizier Ali Pasa could suppress it. But the conditions that had caused the uprising remained a major problem for Bayezid's successor. In the end Bayezid's increasingly mystic and pacific nature led the Janissaries to dethrone him in favour of his militant and active son Selim.

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