G. Agoston – Encyclopedia of the Ottoman Empire

Автор: G. Agoston
Название книги: Encyclopedia of the Ottoman Empire
Формат: PDF
Жанр: Древний мир и Античность
Страницы: 689
Качество: Изначально компьютерное, E-book

This encyclopedia provides a thorough overview of the history and civilization of the Ottomans, with approximately 450 A-to-Z entries focusing on major events, personalities, institutions, and terms.

Because The Encyclopedia of the Ottoman Empire
was written with high school and college students in
mind, we have tried to minimize reliance upon specialized
academic vocabulary as much as possible. However,
we do expect our readers to have basic familiarity
with commonly used historical terms and geographical
names. With regard to foreign words, Facts On File follows
the conventions of Merriam Webster’s Dictionary
(MW). Consequently, Ottoman terms and expressions
that have entered the English language are found using
the spellings indicated in MW. Most such words are
Arabic or Persian in origin and will be familiar to students
of Islamic civilization. The reader will thus find
words like agha, caravansary, fatwa, hammam, madrasa,
muezzin, pasha, sharia, and not the Modern Turkish
equivalents ağa, kervansaray, fetva, hamam, medrese,
müezzin, paşa or şeriat. Also, since these foreign terms
have entered English they are not italicized. We go by
this rule even when the term has become part of a proper
name (Osman Agha, Osman Pasha, etc.) However, when
a term found in MW forms part of a compound Ottoman
name or term (e.g. Kemalpaşazade, kapı ağası,
kızlar ağası) we use the modern Turkish transliteration,
for it would be confusing to the reader to see the Anglicized
form of these compound phrases without their
grammatical inflections in Turkish. This also makes
cross-referencing easier for the reader, since such compound
phrases are usually given in the modern Turkish
transliteration in other reference works and secondary
literature.
Those Ottoman terms that are not found in the 11th
edition of Merriam-Webster are considered by Facts On
File to be foreign words, and thus are italicized. In these
cases, we use modern Turkish transliteration, even if the
word is of Arabic origin (e.g., darüşşifa, lit. “the house
of healing,” that is, hospital) However, proper names of
institutions are not italicized (Darülfünun-i Osmani,
lit. “The Ottoman House of Sciences,” that is, The Ottoman
University). We omitted the circumflex above
a, i, and u that is used to denote lengthened vowels in
words of Arabic or Persian origin. The only exception
is the world âlî, (high/tall sublime, exalted etc.), such as
in Dergah-ı Âlî (Sublime Porte) or Âlî Pasha Mehmed
Emin, to differentiate him from the many Ali Pashas.
Also, we do not generally use the Turkish capitalized
dotted İ for place and personal names that have entered
common usage in En glish (Istanbul, Izmir, Ibrahim),
while lesser known names are given in their Turkish
orthography (e.g. İzzet). The dot also disappears from
words set in small caps (Selim, Nizam-i Cedid ).
WHO ARE THE OTTOMANS?
The Ottomans, named after the founder of the dynasty,
Osman (d. 1324), were one of many Turkic Anatolian
emirates or principalities that emerged in the late 13thcentury
power vacuum caused by the Mongols’ obliteration
of the empire of the Rum Seljuks. They were driven
out of their central Asian homeland by the Mongols
in the 13th century and settled in north-western Asia
Minor or Anatolia, in the vicinity of the shrinking Eastern
Roman or Byzantine Empire shortly before 1300.
The region they settled had previously been ruled
by the Seljuks of Rum. Following the victory of the
Great Seljuks over the Byzantine army in 1071, a branch
of the Great Seljuks established its rule in eastern and
central Anatolia, known to them as Rum (i.e., the lands
of the Eastern Roman (Rum) Empire) and soon came
to be known as the Seljuks of Rum. Under the Rum
Seljuks, large numbers of semi-nomadic Turks migrated
from Transoxania in Central Asia to eastern and central
Anatolia, where the upland pasturelands and warm
coastlands offered ideal conditions for the pastoralists’
way of life.
The Seljuks brought with them the religion of Islam,
and conversion seems to have been widespread from the
11th century onward. At the time the Ottoman Turks
arrived in the 13th century, there was still a large population
of Greeks and Armenians in Asia Minor, especially
in the towns, and relations between Greeks and Turks
were closer and inter-marriages more common than usually
assumed. Greeks worked in the Seljuk administration
in high offices, Turkish troops were often hired by the
Byzantine emperors, and fleeing Turkish rulers sought
refuge in Byzantium more often than among their Muslim
brethren in Syria, Mesopotamia, and Iran.
By the time the Ottoman Turks settled in the Sakarya
valley in the vicinity of the Byzantine Empire, the population
of western Asia Minor had largely become Turkish-
speaking and Muslim in religion. The influx of
Turkic semi-nomadic peoples or Turkomans into western
Anatolia is closely related to the Mongol invasion of
the Middle East in the 1240s and 1250s. A western army
of the Mongols invaded and defeated the Rum Seljuks
in 1243 at Kösedağ, northeast of present-day Sivas in
Turkey. In 1258, Hülegü, the brother of the great khan,
Möngke Khan, conquered and sacked Baghdad, ending
the rule of the Abbasid Caliphate (750–1258).
The Rum Seljuks soon became the vassals of the Ilkhans
(“obedient khans”), the descendents of Hülegü, who
established their own empire in the vast area stretching
from present-day Afghanistan to Turkey. As the Mongols
occupied more and more grasslands for their horses
in Asia Minor, the Turkomans moved further to western
Anatolia and settled in the Seljuk-Byzantine frontier. By
the last decades of the 13th century the Ilkhans and their
Seljuk vassals lost control over much of Anatolia to these
Turkoman peoples. In the ensuing power vacuum, a
number of Turkish lords managed to establish themselves
as rulers of various principalities, known as beyliks or
emirates. The Ottomans, who were only one among the
numerous principalities, settled in northwestern Anatolia,
in the former Byzantine province of Bithynia.
It was a fortunate location for many reasons. In
1261, the Byzantines recaptured Constantinople from the
Latins, who had conquered the city in 1204 during the
Fourth Crusade, established a Latin Empire in Constantinople
(1204–61), divided the former Byzantine territories
in the Balkans and the Aegean among themselves,
and forced the Byzantine Emperors into exile at Nicaea
(present-day Iznik in Turkey). From 1261 onwards, the
Byzantines were largely preoccupied with policies aiming
at regaining their control in the Balkans, and, in the
words of the contemporary Byzantine chronicler Pachymeres
(writing circa 1310), “the defenses of the eastern
territory were weakened, whilst the Persians (Turks)
were emboldened to invade lands which had no means of
driving them off.” Owing to their location, the Ottomans
were best positioned to conquer the eastern territories of
the Byzantine Empire. However, the situation was more
complex and to view the history of the northwestern
Anatolian frontier solely as a clash between Cross (Byzantium)
and Crescent (invading Muslim Turks) would
be a mistake. The shift in Byzantine policy also offered
new opportunities for the Turkish principalities in western
Anatolia, for the Byzantines needed allies and mercenaries.
The Ottomans, who were perhaps the least
significant among the Turkish emirates and thus posed
the smallest threat to Byzantine authority around 1300,
seemed to be perfect candidates for the job. Indeed, the
Ottomans arrived in Europe as the allies of the Byzantines
and established their first bridgehead in Europe in
Tzympe, southwest of Gallipoli on the European shore of
the Dardanelles, in 1352.
Within 50 years, through military conquest, diplomacy,
dynastic marriages, and the opportunistic exploitation
of the Byzantine civil wars, the third Ottoman
ruler Murad I (r. 1362–89) more than tripled the territories
under his direct rule, reaching some 100,000 square
miles, evenly distributed in Europe and Asia Minor. His
son Bayezid I (r. 1389–1402), according to some scholars
the first Ottoman ruler to use the title sultan (“sovereign,”
ruler with supreme authority), extended Ottoman
control over much of southeastern Europe and Asia
Minor, up to the rivers Danube and Euphrates, respectively.
Alerted by this spectacular Ottoman conquest,
Europeans organized a crusade to halt Ottoman advance,
but were defeated in 1396. However, Ottoman expansion
was stopped by Timur or Tamerlane, a skillful and cruel
military leader of Mongol decent from Transoxania, who
defeated Bayezid at the battle of Ankara (July 28, 1403,
see Ankara, battle of). Bayezid died in the captivity of
Timur, who reduced the Ottoman lands to what they had
been at the beginning of Murad I’s reign. Fortunately for
the Ottomans, however, the basic institutions of the Ottoman
state (tax system, revenue and tax surveys, central
and provincial bureaucracy and the army) had already
taken root and large segments of Ottoman society had
vested interests in restoring the power of the House of
Osman. Moreover, Bayezid’s victorious conquests served
as inspiration for his successors who managed to rebuild
the state, and half a century later, in 1453, Ottoman
armies under Sultan Mehmed II (r. 1444–46, 1451–81)
conquered Constantinople (see Constantinople, siege
of), the capital of the thousand-year-old Byzantine
Empire. The Ottomans emerged as the undisputed power
in southeastern Europe, the eastern Mediterranean, and
Asia Minor. Within another 50 years, in the possession of
Constantinople that they made their capital and the logistical
center of their campaigns, the Ottomans cemented
their rule over the Balkans and turned the Black Sea into
an “Ottoman lake,” although their control of its northern
shores was never complete. In 1516–17 Sultan Selim I
(r. 1512–20) defeated the Mamluk Empire of Egypt and
Syria, incorporating their realms into his empire whereas
Süleyman I (r. 1520–66) conquered central Hungary
and Iraq. By this time, the Ottoman Empire had become
one of the most important empires in Europe and in territories
known today as the Middle East.
Although Europeans called the Ottomans “Turks,”
they considered themselves Osmanlı (Ottomans), followers
of Osman, the eponymous founder of the Osmanlı
dynasty. In the early decades of the empire’s history
everyone who followed Osman and joined his band was
considered Ottoman, regardless of ethnicity or religion.
Later the term referred to the Ottoman ruling elite, also
known as askeri (“military,” after their main occupation),
whereas the taxpaying subject population, Muslims and
non-Muslims alike, was known as the reaya, the “flock.”
While the term “Turk” is not entirely incorrect to denote
the Ottomans—for they were originally Turks—one
should remember that the descendents of Osman were
ethnically mixed due to intermarriages with Byzantine,
Serbian, and Bulgarian royal houses and the dynasty’s
practice to reproduce through non-Muslim slave concubines.
More importantly, while superficially Islamized
Turks comprised the largest group among the followers
of Osman, the early Ottoman society was complex and
included members of numerous religions and ethnicities.
Members of various Islamic sects, Orthodox Christians,
Islamized and/or Turkified Greeks, Armenians and Jews
lived and fought alongside the Turks. The population of
the empire’s Balkan provinces remained largely ethnically
Slavic and Orthodox Christian in religion, despite
voluntary migration and state organized re-settlements
of Turks from Anatolia to the Balkans. In short, it was
a multi-ethnic and multi-religious empire ruled by the
Osmanlı dynasty from circa 1300 until its demise in
World War I. The empire’s elites considered themselves
Ottoman and used the word Turk as a disparaging term
for the uneducated Anatolian subject peasant population.
These Ottomans spoke the Ottoman-Turkish language
(see language and script) that, with its Arabic
and Persian vocabulary, was different from the Anatolian
Turkish spoken by the peasants. The Ottomans also produced,
supported, and consumed the Ottoman literature
that would largely have been unintelligible to the masses.
Thus, it is more correct to call this empire Ottoman than
Turkish.