Turkic Nations

On the usage of the Term Turkish/Turkic World

Original Post  

Turkic people do not distinguish between Turkish and Turkic. For most of them, there is only one Turkish people from Sakha to the Balkans/Europe, who speaks different dialects of one Turkish Language. The distinction between Turkish and Turkic is artificial and is a fabrication of Stalin Era politics of divide et Impera.

"It should be noted that in no Turk dialect is there any such differentiation as Turkic and Turkish. This distinction is a new introduction into the politics of nationalities, and exists in some Western languages as in Russian …"

"Only since the soviet language reforms especially of the 1930s, have the dialects been asserted to be individual and unrelated Central Asian languages" They are, with exception of Yakut and Chuvash, which are considered as separate languages in Turkish Language family, mutually intelligible."

I have insisted long in usage of Turkish instead of Turkic. But meanwhile I have ascertained that this distinction is so widespread that to insist only creates confusion. Only for this reason we shall make in our English contributions the same distinction.

 Turkic People and Turkic World

Turan (Turks - Turkic People)

Turks

Uygur scholar’s significant discovery: Ancient Uygur historian says Xiongnu are Turks (1)

Original Post

         For over a century, there have been heated arguments and disagreements as to the ethnic and linguistics identity of the Huns. Opinions and conclusions have pointed to diverse, often diametrically opposed directions. Scholars have considered ethnographic, linguistic, anthropological, and archeological data as well as ancient documents written about the Huns, yet no consensus has been reached.

       However, just recently Yassin Ashuri an Uygur Chinese scholar at the Institute of Ethnology of  the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Beijing, has uncovered ancient Uygur documents (written by Sinqu Sali 10th century) which shed new light on the question of Hun identity (2006). Unique is the fact that while scholars have sought the answers in Chinese, Arab, Persian, and many western chronicles, Ashuri is first to have examined Uygur documents from the Tang dynasty written in Uygur, a Turkic language.

     Before we can fully appreciate Ashuri’s discovery, we must summarize the views of Chinese and western scholars to date.  The Huns have been identified with 1. Mongol, 2. Turkic, 3. Finnish, and 4. Slavic peoples. This has caused no small confusion, since identification was mostly based on scanty linguistic evidence, a thin connection indeed when we consider that only a handful of authenticated words are known form the language of the Asian Huns (Xiongnu), or the Western Huns of Attila. On this basis, some Chinese scholars, Fang Zhuangqiu, Ma Changshou, Huang Wenbi (Lin 1983: 3), the Mongol scholar Dorgi Surun (Lin 1983:4), as well as the western scholar Howard, concluded that the Huns were Mongolian speaking people  (Wu 2005: 8).

        On the other hand, the Chinese scholars Wang Guowei, Feng Jiasheng,  and Cen Zhongmian consider the Huns to be Turkic (Wu 2005:8). The former Soviet scholar Bernstein in his “Outline of Xiongnu History” concurs, and writes that the Huns were basically Turks (Wu 2005:9).

Other scholars, such as Zheng Shexun, Sun Cizhou following the ideas derived from Deguines (1721), Frederick Hirth (1845-1927), and DeGroot (1854-1921), consider the Xiongnu to be Finns or Slavs (Wu  2005:9).

            Still other scholars, such as Sinor (1990) and Meanchen-Helfen (1973) prefer the view that the Asian Huns (Xionghu) and Western Huns–those lead by Attila in the 5th century–were not the same people, and therefore have no relationship to each other. Needless to say, this last view further complicates the issue.

            So the question remains: Based only on scanty linguistic items as well as uncertain physical characteristics, how could these scholars make the above conclusion regarding the ethnic identity of the Huns?

First of all, a great many problems exist with the linguistic analyses, not to mention that assuming the Huns to be a single ethnos is begging the question. There are only a few attested lexical items gleaned from ancient manuscripts that can be called Xiongnu or Hun. These were written down by Chinese scholar of the Han dynasty (200BC—200AD) according to contemporary pronunciation, in Chinese characters, hardly a representative sample of any language to be studied. A further problem is that no more than 20 of these words have attested meanings. It is according to these few words the scholars have allocated the Huns into the above-mentioned ethnic groups of today: Mongol, Turk, Slav, or Finn.

In the west, it was popular in the 19th century to allocate the Hun’s language to the Mongolian linguistic branch. In the 20th century scholars started to classify the Hun language as Turkic. Some even thought that there was another language branch in the Altaic language family into which we can classify the Hun’s language, but this language became extinct.

Fang Zhuangqiu studied the Hun vocabulary and concluded that 11 items are near Turkic, 12 are close to Manzhu Tungus,  and 20 close to Mongol. Only 10 % of this vocabulary is shared. Thus, according to him, the Huns were Mongols (Wu 2005:10).  Yang Jinxin, on the other hand, thinks maybe because of Fang’s results, that the Hun’s language can be called Proto-Altaic, the three languages—Manzhu, Tungus, and Mongol– have not yet separated (Wu 2005:10).

Another area of study dealt with the examination of human remains. As for existence of contemporary physical characteristics, in front of the tomb of Huo Qubing (Han dynasty) there is an equestrian statue and under the horse’s hoof is the figure of a Xiongnu warrior. This is the only contemporary extant Xiongnu portrait. The figure is small, has small triangular eyes, not very high nose, thick lips and a heavy beard. The Chinese scholar and specialist in Hun studies, (Wu 2005:10),  Professor Lin Gan, concluded that it is the portrait of a Hun, but his physical characteristics are not  clear enough to be classified racially (Lin 1983:27).

In the 1930s Soviet, Hungarian, Mongolian, and Chinese researchers studied skulls of what they considered to be Hunnish. Because the skeletal material could not be definitely attested to be Huns, their conclusions may not be reliable.  Han Kangxin, a Chinese physical anthropologist, published a book, Ancient Inhabitants of the Silk Road  (1993 ),   in which he discussed the former studies on physical anthropology of the Huns. He concluded that attested Hun skulls have a mixture of Mongoloid and Europoid physical characteristics. Bone material from Tian Shan shows strong Europoid features (384-402). Ginsburg ‘s opinion is that the studied skulls are the Central Asian Two River types: they have slightly Mongoloid features, but show predominantly Europoid characteristics (Wu 2005:11).

Here we must emphatically add, that the Central Asian  “Europoid” physical types   formed the indigenous population of Central Asia   generally not farther west than the Black Sea, since the at least the early bronze age. This population, generally characterized in the population of the Andronovo, developed independently form   Europoid populations in central and Western Europe (Okladnikov 1959), and around 500 BC incorporated a mild Mongoloid element (Ginsburg 1966).

However, the Xiongnu’s earliest ethnic identity is clearly noted by Sima Qian, (145 -90? BC) the father of Chinese historiography. He writes in Volume 110 that the ancestor of the Xiongnu was the descendent of the first Chinese dynasty, the Xia  (2100 to 1800 B.C.) (Sima 1997). Sima Qian (was also the contemporary of the Xiongnu when their empire was at its zenith, during the Han dynasty. If the Xiongnu at that time had been of strongly   Europoid physical character, he would have duly mentioned it, as he had done with other groups in his chronicle. However, he makes no mention of  the Xiongnu’s physical appearance. Thus we must assume, that at the time of the Han dynasty, when Sima Qian was writing his great history of China, they did not appear different from the North Chinese.  Later, when the Xiongnu power extended westward, the Andronovo groups mixed with them and as determined by Han Kangxin, since the bone material from the Tian Shan shows strong Europoid features.

However, earlier Europoid influences can be seen. The skulls from Tuekta, Katanda and Pazyrik graves, examined by Debets and dated from 600 to 300 BC, also do not suggest a homogenous population. The skulls exhibit a mixture of  Europoids and Mongoloids, similar to  the contemporary Kirghiz and Kazaks (Rudenko 1970: 47). Ismagulov, the Kazakh anthropologist determined that significant number of contemporary Kazakhs exhibits this Eurpoid type with a slight Mongoloid admixture and this population can be traced back in time to as early as the 5th century BC (Ismagulov 1970).   Henkey, the Hungarian anthropologist calls this Andronovo with a slight Mongoloid misture, Turanid (Henkey 1998). Henkey also considers the Pazyryk skulls of this mixed type to be Turanids (personal communication).

 It is customary for scholars to refer to the Pazyryk site complex as Scytho-Siberian, but numerous scholars consider them to be Xiongnu (Dijarbekirli  2002 ; Koca 2002:34-35).

The Noin Ula site is considered to be Xiongnu. Mongolian and Hungarian scholars studied the human skulls found there in the 1960s. These skulls were determined to represent the Ancient Siberian types, while the Outer Baikal graves have bone remains that shows a European admixture between 300-200BC. In China, Han Kangxin studied skulls from the Ordos and Qinghai areas and he concluded that these have characteristics similar to today’s Mongolian populations and belong to the North Asian Mongoloid branch, with not much admixture of other forms (Wu 2005;12).     

However, there exist a variety of   Mongoloid physical types. The question remains, which types show up in the Two River type as the Mongoloid element in the Xiongnu. Han Kangxin concurs with Ginsburg and adds that the Mongoloid elements are of what the former Soviet scholars termed South Siberian (also called Turanid) or Central Asian type and the European (Andronovo per Ginsburg) element represents the local indigenous inhabitants  (Han 1993:395).

From the above we can see the problem: often disregarding time and space, as well as population movement, certain scholars have been trying—rather unsuccessfully—to equate language, physical appearance, political affiliation, and culture in a 1:1:1:1 ratio, intimating that the Huns (or any other group using one name, for that matter) to be culturally, linguistically, and physically homogenous, though the physical anthropological material decidedly suggest   Mongoloid type with an admixture of Europoids of the Andronovo type, especially  between 300-200BC (Ginsburg 1966). 

Homogeneity of any large population, of course, is impossibility. We have ample examples throughout history up to the present times, showing that rather the opposite is true: groups of people (one nation, empires, a country), speaking different languages and having different physical appearances form cultural and political alliances whose configuration change through time. Herodotus wrote that the Scythians  (or Saka) were a heterogeneous group, having different customs and languages (Minns 1971), yet scholars are still on the quest of assigning them a single linguistic and ethnic homogeneity (Europoid), intimating that they spoke a single( generally Indo-European) language. Minns, as early as 1913, also raises the issue of heterogeneity of the Scythians by introducing a photo of a figurine, (found in Memphis, Egypt, dated to the 5th c. B.C. in the collection of Flinders Petrie) with a typical Scytian pointed cap and attire but with unmistakable Mongoloid features, (Minns 1971 xxxvii, figure o.).

Uygur scholar’s significant discovery: Ancient Uygur historian says Xiongnu are Turks(2)

Genghis Khan, a member of the Kiyat clan, Borjigin tribe, incorporated many other tribes including Turkic tribes into the empire that later bore the name Mongol (Mongu =Strong). The Mongols are not and never have been a physically, homogenous or linguistically monolingual people, though politically they were allied  (Obrusanszky 2003;39). Indeed, the Arab writer Rashid ed Din wrote that people were surprised Kublai Khan had dark hair and eyes, because most of Genghis Khan’s descendants had reddish hair and blue eyes  (Minns  1970: 45).

These data above need to be considered. The Xiongnu, throughout their history, cannot be a single race of people, but rather a politically and culturally allied people.     Similarly the word Turk does not imply non-varying homogeneity in physical appearance. The word Turk is applied to the ruling peoples who formed a military and political entity. It is in this connection that the work of Yassin Ashuri is of great value and significance.

Dr. Ashuri is a specialist in studying ancient Uygur manuscripts. He has discovered a 10th century translation of the Uygur Buddhist monk, Sinqu Sali. It is the account of the Tang monk, Xuan Zhuang, who was sent by the Tang emperor in the 7th century to go to India to bring back the Buddhist sutras to China.  When Xuan Zhuang returned to China, his student wrote a book about him, called Biography of the Great Xuan Zhuang, teacher of the Great Ci’en Temple. In this book the student carefully recorded Xuan’s life and activities in India ca. 629-645.

In the 10th century, the Uygur monk, Sinqu Sali translated this book into Uygur. Sinqu Sali ‘s homeland was located in the north of Xinjiang, which is noteworthy, since it means he was familiar with the history of the people– his ancestors, as we discover– beyond the Great Wall.

The most significant part of Ashuri’s discovery, however, is the fact that Sinqu Sali  in his   work, translates the Chinese word “Xiongnu” (Hun) into Uygur (a Turkic language)  as “turk yucul budun”, which means, “nomadic or free Turkic people”. This information affirms the notion that “Turk”, “Uygur”, and also “Xiongnu” were names given –though time– interchangeably to groups of politically allied and culturally similar tribes, north of the Great Wall, reflecting the changes in political dynamics; the names do not only refer to their language or physical appearance.

 Furthermore, this data is clear linguistic evidence of a people’s self-appellation, born out by Chinese chronicles and another ancient Buddhist Turkic documents, such as the Maitrisimit Nom Bitig (Ashuri 2006;19 footnote). If the Uygurs– a Turkic language speaking peoples— consider the Huns to be Turks, it also means that even if all the tribes of Xiongnu history were not Turks (Sima Qian names 29 allied and conquered tribes who became “Xiongnu”—Sima; 1997:51-53), part of those who established the Xiongnu empire certainly were Turks, that is, sharing a common political organization and cultural heritage, identity, though maybe not an entirely homogenous—though related– genetic unity.

There can be no mistake about tribal affiliations in Asia. At least the peoples who live in China know their genealogy going back hundreds of years. It is common knowledge even today what tribe a Turk, or a Mongol belongs. However, tribes were exogamous. Exogamy was practiced so as to keep tribes from inbreeding as well as for political and economic reasons. Genghis Khan’s parents were members of two different tribes, as was Genghis’ wife who came from yet another tribe.

This meant a man was encouraged to marry outside of his tribe. The woman then became the member of the man’s tribe, but everyone knew which tribe she came from. Even today, Kazahs and Uygurs—two major Turkic minorities in China— both men and women know their tribal affiliation (personal communications with Uygur and Kazak friends in Urumqi and Beijing). Tribal membership is by birth, marriage or adoption, and no one can choose a tribe or falsify his tribal affiliation. Families, relatives, and other tribal members know a man’s tribal membership; therefore no mistake, switch, or accidental membership is possible. This precludes the supposition that Sinqu Sali may have mistakenly called his own people, the Uygur Turks, to be Xiongnu, if indeed they were not ancestrally affiliated.

It is important to realize that by keeping track of genealogy though marriage and descent the Turks and Mongols connected to their tribal ancestors.  Tribal affiliations, strengthened by blood brotherhood (Obrusanszky 2003:22-34) and marriage led to extensive political confederations. The names of confederations were taken after the name of a leading clan who was militarily dominant (Obrusanszky 2003:18), or they often took a name that emphasized the strength of the tribal confederation. The name Mongor means‘strong” and Uygur means,  “united”. Similarly, and the name Onogur= means “ten arrows”. A confederation of the grassland equestrian peoples was not designed to be based either on linguistic or physical homogeneity, but rather on political and economic expediency.  Thus, extensive political federations, such as the Scythians or the Xiongnu had tribes that looked “Mongoloid” as well as “Europoid”, depending on their geographic locations and the neighboring tribes and clans with whom they had     social (exogamy) and political contact. Nevertheless, the confederated members used a single name of the dominant group, such as, Xiongnu, Uyghur, Turk, or Mongol (Secret History of the Mongols) respectively, throughout history. We again refer to the Shiji, Vol 110 of Sima Qian in which he notes that 29 tribes eventually took the name Xiongnu after Mao Tun, the first Xiongnu emperor, conquered them.

Western scholars have tried to assign single racial characteristics to these names—Xiongnu, Uyghur, Mongol, Slav, Turk, —largely on the basis of tenuous linguistic evidence, picking and choosing evidence to support   wishful thinking and a great deal of a priory theories, largely ignoring historical data and the research of Chinese or Turkish scholars. It would be more fruitful to ask a number of different questions regarding this issue. For example, tracing finds backwards in time from most recent to most ancient times, what physical types are represented in the Siberian graves and in what proportion? How is the DNA distribution? How does this population composition change as to physical characteristics through time and space? How much of the material culture change though time and space?   What does all this mean regarding social, economic, and political change in Xiongnu history? And more importantly, a question uppermost in most scholars’ mind: what modern populations can claim descent from these peoples based on DNA analysis? How much of the historical, ethnographic, and archeological evidence support any DNA results regarding the descendents of the Xiongnu and from what time periods?

Recently more tangible evidence surfaced in DNA research that underpins Ashuri’s discovery (Keiser-Tracqui et al. 2003: 247-260). Well-preserved skeletal material was uncovered in the Mongolian Egyin Gol Valley necropolis. The location of the site is along the Egyn Gol River about 10 km from its confluence with the Selenge River, a major tributary of Lake Baikal. The site was determined to belong to the period of the Xiongnu Empire, and was used from the 3rd c. BC to the 2nd c. AD. DNA material was extracted from 62 specimens (individual skeletons) of this burial site and analyzed to reconstruct genealogies of a 500 year period, providing data for the social organization of the Xiongnu as well as further proof for previous textual data asserting the existence of clan burial grounds  (Keyser-Tracqui, et al. 2003: 247-260).

 It is significant that 89% of the DNA sequences found in this Xiongnu burial site belonged to the Asian haplotype (shared by 65% of contemporary Mongolians) while 11% were of various European haplotypes (occurring only in 11% of contemporary European [Eastern?—IH]  populations ). However, also significant finding was that no major Western European haplotype (cluster H) was identified (Keyser-Tracqui, et al. 2003:256).

 However, and more importantly, within the cemetery dated between the 2nd c  BC to 1st c. A D, the genetic material in the paternal lineage of a number of skeletal individuals was also identified in modern Turkic individuals (Henke et al. 2001; Comas et al. 1996) and modern Turkic populations (Calafell:1996; Richards et al. 2000). Thus, this can serve as evidence that indeed, the Turkic Uygurs were not only part of the Xiongnu confederation, (Sinqu Sali also identifying the Xiongnu as “free Turkic peoples”), but also some of today’s Turks are the descendents of some of those individuals buried in the Egyn Gol cemetery over 2000 years ago.

  This finding not only substantiates Ashuri’s discovery, but it also supports   historiography as well as oral tradition and ethnographic data of the Turkic, Mongol, the millions of people who  today are Chinese, living in the north of China, and even Hungarians  (whose physical anthropology shows character clusters associated with modern Kazaks and Uygurs; see Henkey-Horvath 1998; 2002). All of these people claim descent from the Xiongnu or Huns –based on oral tradition as well as historical data–, at least from those whose skeletal remains had undergone DNA analysis. 

Though today the Xiongnu  are no longer a political entity, a significant number of individuals among today’s Turks, Mongols, and Hungarians  resemble them most closely physically, and historically inherited much  of their cultural traits. Written historical records and their own oral tradition had already connected them to these ancient political federations.

Ashuri’s work contributes to the research on the distribution, movement, and social organization of the peoples of the Xiongnu Empire. His finding also highlights the dangers of relying solely on scanty and tenuous linguistic material to draw conclusions about the ethnicity of the Xiongnu, while ignoring other data. Furthermore, it confirms that claims of Xiongnu descent by contemporary populations can be substantiated on the basis of much stronger than tenuous linguistic evidence. This evidence comprise of not only oral tradition and keeping genealogical records, but also of written historical data, physical anthropological evidence, and the most recent DNA analysis.

The Huns part 1

Turks

The Huns part 2

Turks

The Huns part 3

Turks

The Huns part 4

Turks

The Huns part 5

Turks

TURKIC REPUBLICS

Turks

THE TURKS - 1000 FACES 1 SOUL-We are Turks

Turks

Uyghur Nusic ( Song)

World Known Uyghur Nightingale (Dilber Yunus)

Uyghur ( Uighur ) Song

Hasret çektim

Tuvan Throat Singing - Tuva Turks Song

Ottoman Empire

The Ottoman Empire (1299 to 1922) (Ottoman Turkish: دولت عالیه عثمانیه Devlet-i Âliye-yi Osmâniyye, Turkish: Osmanlı İmparatorluğu, also known as the Turkish Empire or Turkey by its contemporaries, see the other names of the Ottoman State), was a multi-ethnic and multi-religious Turkish ruled state which, at the height of its power (16th – 17th centuries), spanned three continents, controlling much of Southeastern Europe, the Middle East and North Africa, stretching from the Strait of Gibraltar (and, in 1553, the Atlantic coast of Morocco beyond Gibraltar) in the west to the Caspian Sea and Persian Gulf in the east, from the edge of Austria, Slovakia and parts of Ukraine in the north to Sudan, Eritrea, Somalia and Yemen in the south.

The empire was at the centre of interactions between the Eastern and Western worlds for six centuries. The empire was the only Islamic power to seriously challenge the rising power of Western Europe between the 15th and 19th centuries. It steadily declined during the 19th century and met its demise after its defeat in the Middle Eastern theatre of World War I. In the aftermath of the war, the Ottoman government collapsed and the empire's lands were partitioned.

Following the victory of the Turkish revolutionaries led by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk at the Turkish War of Independence, the Ottoman Sultanate was abolished on November 1, 1922. The last Ottoman Sultan, Mehmed VI Vahideddin, left Istanbul on November 17, 1922. Turkey was declared a republic on October 29, 1923.

Ottoman Empire
Osmanlı İmparatorluğu
دولت عالیه عثمانیه
Devlet-i Âliye-yi Osmâniyye
Sublime Ottoman State

Flag


Capital Söğüt (1299–1326)
Bursa (1326–65)
Edirne (1365–1453)
Constantinople (İstanbul, 1453–1922)
Language(s) Ottoman Turkish
Government Monarchy [[Category:Former monarchies}}|Ottoman Empire, 1299]]
Sultans
- 1281–1326 Osman I
- 1918–22 Mehmed VI
Grand Viziers
- 1320–31 Alaeddin Pasha
- 1920–22 Ahmed Tevfik Pasha
History
- Foundation 1299
- Interregnum 1402–1413
- 1.Constitutional 1886-1888
- 2.Constitutional 1908-1918
- Partition November 17, 1922
Area
- 1680 5,500,000 km² (2,123,562 sq mi)
Population
- 1856 est. 35,350,000
- 1906 est. 20,884,000
- 1914 est. 18,520,000
- 1919 est. 14,629,000
Currency Akçe, Kuruş, Lira

Origins

The origins of the Ottoman Empire can be found in the Kayi tribe of Oğuz Turks, part of the westward Turkic migrations from Central Asia that began during the 10th century. It was during this period the Seljuks settled and began to push west into Anatolia at the beginning of the 11th century.

The permanent Turkish foothold in Anatolia, the Seljuk Sultanate of Rūm, was established after an historic victory at the Battle of Manzikert against the Byzantines in 1071. As Byzantine authority declined, waves of Turkic migrants settled in Anatolia under the suzerainty of the Seljuk Turks, altering the demographic composition of the region. Yet the Seljuk Turks fell apart rapidly in the second half of the 13th century. Just as the nomadic Turks posed a threat to Byzantium, a new nomadic eruption entered the region in the form of the Mongols. In 1243 the Mongol army routed the Seljuks at the Battle of Köse Dag, turning the Turkish beyliks into vassals of the Mongol Ilkhanate. Like many of the nomadic peoples however, the inability to create effective institutions of state had made Mongol rule only temporary. In its place, and with the demise of the Seljuk Sultanate, Turkish Anatolia was divided into a patchwork of independent states, the so-called Ghazi emirates.

By 1300, a weakened Byzantium had seen most of its Anatolian provinces lost among some ten Ghazi principalities. One of the Ghazi emirates was led by Osman I (from which Ottoman derived its name), son of Ertuğrul in the region of Eskişehir in western Anatolia. How Osman and his tribe came to settle here is embroiled in legend. According to tradition, as Ertuğrul migrated across Asia Minor with his followers of some four hundred horsemen, he chanced upon a battle between two armies. Having decided to intervene, he chose the side of the losing army and turned the battle in their favour to secure victory. The troops he supported happened to be those of a Seljuk Sultan who rewarded him with territory in Eskişehir.Following Ertuğrul's death in 1281, Osman became chief, or Bey, and by 1299 declared himself a sovereign ruler from the Seljuk empire.

Rise (1299–1453)

Mehmed II conquered Constantinople and made it the new Ottoman capital in 1453

While the other Turkish beyliks were preoccupied with fighting each other, Osman I was able to extend the frontiers of Ottoman settlement towards the edge of the Byzantine Empire. He moved the Ottoman capital to Bursa, and shaped the early political development of the nation. Given the nickname "Kara" (Turkish for black) for his courage, Osman I was admired as a strong and dynamic ruler long after his death, as evident in the centuries-old Turkish phrase, "May he be as good as Osman." His reputation has also been burnished by the medieval Turkish story known as "Osman's Dream", a foundation myth in which the young Osman was inspired to conquest by a prescient vision of empire.

This period saw the creation of a formal Ottoman government whose institutions would remain largely unchanged for almost four centuries. In contrast to many contemporary states, the Ottoman bureaucracy tried to avoid military rule. The government also utilized the legal entity known as the millet, under which religious and ethnic minorities were able to manage their own affairs with substantial independence from central control.

In the century after the death of Osman I, Ottoman rule began to extend over the Eastern Mediterranean and the Balkans. After defeat in Battle of Plocnik, the Turkish victory at the Battle of Kosovo effectively marked the end of Serbian power in the region, and paved the way for Ottoman expansion into Europe. With the extension of Turkish dominion into the Balkans, the strategic conquest of Constantinople became a crucial objective. The empire controlled nearly all of the former Byzantine lands, the Greeks gained a temporary reprieve when Timur Lenk invaded Anatolia in 1402, taking Sultan Bayezid I prisoner. The Ottomans recovered from this setback and Constantinople was eventually taken during the rule of Mehmed II.

Mehmed II reorganized the structure of both the state and military, and demonstrated his martial prowess by capturing Constantinople (see: Istanbul (Etymology)) on 29 May 1453, at the age of 21. The city became the new capital of the Ottoman Empire. Before Mehmed II was killed, Empire's forces occupied Corsica, Sardinia and Sicily. But with his death, the campaign on Italy was canceled. Sokullu Mehmet Pasha, who was a great grand vizier, created the projects of Suez Channel and Don-Volga Channel but these were canceled.

Growth (1453–1683)

This period in Ottoman history can roughly be divided into two distinct eras: an era of territorial, economic, and cultural growth prior to 1566, followed by an era of relative military and political stagnation.

Following the conquest of Constantinople in 1453, the Ottoman Empire entered a long period of conquest and expansion, extending its borders deep into Europe and North Africa. The Empire prospered under the rule of a series of committed and effective sultans, culminating in the rule of Suleiman I (the Magnificent). Conquests on land were driven by the discipline and innovation of the Turkish military; and on the sea, the Ottoman navy established the empire as a great trading power. The state also flourished economically thanks to its control of the major overland trade routes between Europe and Asia.

However, Suleiman's death in 1566 marked the beginning of an era of diminishing territorial gains. The rise of western European nations as naval powers and the development of alternative sea routes from Europe to Asia and the New World damaged the Ottoman economy. The effective military and bureaucratic structures of the previous century also came under strain during a protracted period of misrule by weak Sultans. But in spite of these difficulties, the empire remained a major expansionist power until the Battle of Vienna in 1683, which marked the end of Ottoman expansion into Europe.

Expansion and apogee (1453–1566)

The Ottoman conquest of Constantinople in 1453 cemented the status of the empire as the preeminent power in southeastern Europe and the eastern Mediterranean. Over the next century, the empire would extend its influence into the heart of the Arab world and come to dominate southeast Europe. Sultan Selim I (1512–1520) dramatically expanded the empire's eastern and southern frontiers by defeating the young Safavid Shah of Persia, Ismail I, in the Battle of Chaldiran. Selim I established Ottoman rule in Egypt, and created a naval presence on the Red Sea.

Selim's successor, Suleiman the Magnificent (1520–1566), further expanded upon Selim's conquests. After capturing Belgrade in 1521, Suleiman conquered the Kingdom of Hungary establishing Ottoman rule in the territory of present-day Hungary and other Central European territories, by winning the Battle of Mohács in 1526. He then laid siege to Vienna in 1529, but failed to take the city after the onset of winter forced his retreat. During the reign of Suleiman, Transylvania, Wallachia and, intermittently, Moldavia, became tributary principalities of the Ottoman Empire, but never became parts of it. In the east, the Ottomans took Baghdad from the Persians in 1535, gaining control of Mesopotamia and naval access to the Persian Gulf.

Under Selim and Suleiman, the empire became a dominant naval force, controlling much of the Mediterranean Sea. The exploits of the Ottoman admiral Barbarossa Hayreddin Pasha, who commanded the Turkish navy during Suleiman's reign, included a number of impressive military victories. Among these were the conquest of Tunis and Algeria from Spain; the evacuation of Muslims and Jews from Spain to the safety of Ottoman lands (particularly Salonica, Cyprus, and Constantinople) during the Spanish Inquisition; and the capture of Nice from the Holy Roman Empire in 1543. This last conquest occurred on behalf of France as a joint venture between the forces of the French king Francis I and those of Barbarossa. France and the Ottoman Empire, united by mutual opposition to Habsburg rule in southern and central Europe, became strong allies during this period. The alliance was economic as well as military, as the sultans granted France the right of trade within the empire without levy of taxation. In fact, the Ottoman Empire was by this time a significant and accepted part of the European political sphere, and entered into a military alliance with France, England and the Netherlands against Habsburg Spain, Italy and Habsburg Austria.

As the 16th century progressed, Ottoman naval superiority was challenged by the growing sea powers of western Europe, particularly Portugal, in the Persian Gulf, Indian Ocean and the Spice Islands. With the Ottomans blockading sea-lanes to the East and South, the European powers were driven to find another way to the ancient Silk and Spice routes, now under absolute Ottoman control. On land, the empire was preoccupied by military campaigns in the Austrian Empire and Persia, two widely-separated theaters of war. The strain of these conflicts on the empire's resources, and the logistics of maintaining lines of supply and communication across such vast distances, ultimately rendered its sea efforts unsustainable and unsuccessful. Despite the Ottomans' strategic vision and partial success in global campaigning, the overriding military need for defense on the western and eastern frontiers of the empire eventually made effective long-term engagement elsewhere impossible.

Revolts and revival (1566–1683)

The later half of the 16th century marked the start of European efforts to curb the Ottoman control of overland trade routes. A number of western European states began to circumvent the Turkish trade monopoly by establishing their own naval routes to Asia. Economically, the huge influx of Spanish silver from the New World caused a sharp devaluation of the Ottoman currency and rampant inflation. This had serious negative consequences at all levels of Ottoman society.

In southern Europe, a coalition of European trading powers on the Italian peninsula formed an alliance to weaken the Ottoman grip on the waters of the Mediterranean Sea. Their victory over the Ottomans at the naval Battle of Lepanto (1571) hastened the end of the empire's primacy in the Mediterranean; and in fact, this battle was considered by some earlier historians to signal the beginning of Ottoman decline. By the end of the 16th century, the golden era of sweeping conquest and territorial expansion was over.

The Habsburg frontier in particular became a more or less permanent border until the 19th century, marked only by relatively minor battles concentrating on the possession of individual fortresses. This stalemate was partly a reflection of simple geographical limits: in the pre-mechanized age, Vienna marked the furthest point that an Ottoman army could march from Istanbul during the early-spring to late-autumn campaigning season. It also reflected the difficulties imposed on the empire by the need to maintain two separate fronts: one against the Austrians (see:Ottoman wars in Europe), and the other against a rival Islamic state, the Safavids of Persia (see: Ottoman wars in Near East).

On the battlefield, the Ottomans gradually fell behind the Europeans in military technology as the innovation which fed the empire's forceful expansion became stifled by growing religious and intellectual conservatism. Changes in European military tactics caused the once-feared Sipahi cavalry to lose its military relevance. Discipline and unit cohesion in the army also became a problem due to relaxations of recruitment policy and the growth of the Janissary corps at the expense of other military units.

The warrior sultan Murad IV (1612–1640), who recaptured Yerevan (1635) and Baghdad (1639) from the Safavids, is the only example in this era of a sultan who exercised strong political and military control of the empire. Notably, Murad IV was the last Ottoman emperor who went to war in front of his army.

The Jelali revolts (1519-1610) and Janissary revolts (1622) were the mark for widespread lawlessness and rebellion in Anatolia in the late 16th and early 17th centuries that toppled several governments. However, the 17th century was not simply an era of stagnation and decline, but also a key period in which the Ottoman state and its structures began to adapt to new pressures and new realities, internal and external.

The Sultanate of women (1530s-1660s) was a period in which the political impact of the Imperial Harem was unchallenged, as the mothers of the young sultans exercised power on behalf of their sons. Hürrem Sultan, who established herself in the early 1530s as the successor of Nurbanu, the first Valide Sultan, was described by the Venetian Baylo Andrea Giritti as 'a woman of the utmost goodness, courage and wisdom' despite the fact that she 'thwarted some while rewarding others'.[3] The last prominent women of this period were Kösem Sultan and her daughter-in-law Turhan Hatice, whose political rivalry culminated in Kösem's murder in 1651. This period gave way to the Köprülü Era (1656-1703), during which the Empire was controlled first by the powerful members of the Imperial Harem, and later by a sequence of Grand Viziers. The relative ineffectiveness of the successive sultans and the diffusion of power to lower levels of the government have characterized the Köprülü Era.

Decline and reform (1699–1908)

The long period of Ottoman decline is typically broken by historians into an era of failed reforms and a subsequent era of modern times. The military and political details of this period are covered in three separate articles: the stagnation of the Ottoman Empire (1699–1827), when the empire began to lose territory along its western borders, but managed to maintain its stature as a great regional power; the decline of the Ottoman Empire (1828–1908), when the empire lost territory on all fronts, and there was administrative instability due to the breakdown of centralized government, despite efforts of reform and reorganization such as the Tanzimat; and the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire (1908-1922), when the Ottoman state finally met its demise under the government of the Committee of Union and Progress which administered the country during the Italo-Turkish War of 1911-1912, the Balkan Wars of 1912-1913, and the First World War of 1914-1918.

Starting from the occupation of Algeria by France in 1830, and the independence of Greece in 1832 — both of which followed the weakening of the Ottoman Navy after the Battle of Navarino in 1827 against the combined British-French-Russian fleets — the empire's territories in Europe, Asia and Africa began to gradually shrink. The process gained pace after the Ottoman defeat at the Russo-Turkish War (1877-1878), which caused the loss of a great deal of the Balkan provinces, some of which were recovered after the Congress of Berlin in 1878, particularly with the assistance of the British government of Benjamin Disraeli. In return, Britain rented Cyprus in 1878 and occupied Egypt in 1882 (Cyprus and Egypt remained Ottoman territories de jure until 1914, when the Ottoman Empire entered World War I on the side of the Central Powers). France occupied Tunisia in 1881 and Austria-Hungary annexed Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1908. Libya and the Dodecanese Islands were occupied by Italy after the Italo-Turkish War of 1911-1912, and the remaining Balkan provinces were lost with the Balkan Wars of 1912-1913. Finally, the non-Turkish Ottoman territories in the Middle East were lost in the aftermath of World War I. Large parts of Anatolia were also partitioned with the Treaty of Sèvres, which were later recovered with the Treaty of Lausanne following the Turkish War of Independence in 1919-1922.

Reform (1699–1827)

Further wars were lost, and territories ceded, to Austria in the Balkans. Certain areas of the empire, such as Egypt and Algeria, became independent in all but name, and subsequently came under the influence of Britain and France. The 18th century saw centralized authority giving way to varying degrees of provincial autonomy enjoyed by local governors and leaders. A series of wars were fought between the Russian and Ottoman empires from the 17th to the 19th centuries. Ottoman science and technology had been highly regarded in medieval times, as a result of Ottoman scholars' synthesis of classical learning with Islamic philosophy and mathematics, and knowledge of such Chinese advances in technology as gunpowder and the magnetic compass. By this period though the influences had become regressive and conservative. The guilds of writers denounced the printing press as "the Devil's Invention", and were responsible for a 43-year lag between its invention by Johannes Gutenberg in Europe in 1450 and its introduction to the Ottoman society (the first Gutenberg press in Istanbul was established by the Sephardic Jews of Spain in 1493, who had escaped the Spanish Inquisition of 1492 and migrated to the Ottoman Empire).

The Tulip Era (or Lâle Devri in Turkish), named for Sultan Ahmed III's love of the tulip flower and its use to symbolize his peaceful reign, the empire's policy towards Europe underwent a shift. The region was peaceful between 1718–1730, after the Ottoman victory against Russia in the Pruth Campaign in 1712 and the subsequent Treaty of Passarowitz brought a period of pause in warfare. The empire began to improve the fortifications of cities bordering the Balkans to act as a defense against European expansionism. Other tentative reforms were also enacted: taxes were lowered; there were attempts to improve the image of the Ottoman state; and the first instances of private investment and entrepreneurship occurred.

Ottoman military reform efforts begin with Selim III (1789-1807) who made the first major attempts to modernize the army along European lines. These efforts, however, were hampered by reactionist movements, partly from the religious leadership, but primarily from the Janissary corps, who had become anarchic and ineffectual. Jealous of their privileges and firmly opposed to change created a Janissary revolt. Selim's efforts cost him his throne and his life, but were resolved in spectacular and bloody fashion by his successor, the dynamic Mahmud II, who massacred the Janissary corps in 1826. Later on in Ottoman history there were educational and technological reforms, including the establishment of higher education institutions such as Istanbul Technical University; but decline continued despite these measures.

Modernization (1828–1908)

The period of the Ottoman Empire's decline was characterized by the reorganization and transformation of most of the empire's structures in an attempt to bolster the empire against increasingly powerful rivals.

The rise of nationalism swept through many countries during the 19th century, and the Ottoman Empire was not immune. A burgeoning national consciousness, together with a growing sense of ethnic nationalism, made nationalistic thought one of the most significant Western ideas imported by the Ottoman empire, as it was forced to deal with nationalism-related issues both within and beyond its borders. There was a significant increase in the number of revolutionary political parties. Uprisings in Ottoman territory had many far-reaching consequences during the 19th century and determined much of Ottoman policy during the early 20th century. Many Ottoman Turks questioned whether the policies of the state were to blame: some felt that the sources of ethnic conflict were external, and unrelated to issues of governance. While this era was not without some successes, the ability of the Ottoman state to have any effect on ethnic uprisings was seriously called into question. Greece declared its independence from the Empire in 1829 after the end of the Greek War of Independence. Reforms did not halt the rise of nationalism in the Danubian Principalities and Serbia, which had been semi-independent for almost 6 decades; in 1875 Serbia, Montenegro, Bosnia, Bulgaria, Wallachia and Moldova declared their independence from the Empire; and following the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-78, independence was formally granted to Serbia, Romania and Montenegro, with the other Balkan territories remaining under Ottoman control.

During the Tanzimat period (from Arabic Tanzîmât, meaning "reorganization") (1839- 1876), a series of constitutional reforms; a fairly modern conscripted army; the banking system was reformed; and the guilds were replaced with modern factories; shortly period provided modernization of the Ottoman Empire. In 1856, the Hatt-ı Hümayun promised equality for all Ottoman citizens irrespective of their ethnicity and confession, widening the scope of the 1839 Hatt-ı Şerif of Gülhane. The Christian millets gained privileges; such as in 1863 the Armenian National Constitution (Ottoman Turkish:"Nizâmnâme-i Millet-i Ermeniyân") was Divan approved form of the "Code of Regulations" composed of 150 articles drafted by the "Armenian intelligentsia", and newly formed "Armenian National Assembly".[4] The reformist period peaked with the Constitution, called the Kanûn-ı Esâsî (meaning "Basic Law" in Ottoman Turkish), written by members of the Young Ottomans, which was promulgated on 23 November 1876. It established freedom of belief and equality of all citizens before the law.

The empire's First Constitutional era (or Birinci Meşrûtiyet Devri in Turkish), was short-lived; however, the idea behind it (Ottomanism), proved influential. A wide-ranging group of reformers known as the Young Ottomans, primarily educated in Western universities, believed that a constitutional monarchy would provide an answer to the empire's growing social unrest. Through a military coup in 1876, they forced Sultan Abdülaziz (1861-1876) to abdicate in favour of Murad V. However, Murad V was mentally ill, and was deposed within a few months. His heir-apparent Abdülhamid II (1876-1909) was invited to assume power on the condition that he would accept to declare a constitutional monarchy, which he did on 23 November 1876. However, the parliament survived for only two years. The sultan suspended, not abolished, the parliament until he was forced to reconvene it. The effectiveness of Kanûn-ı Esâsî was then largely minimized.

The Empire faced military challenges in defending itself against foreign invasion and occupation: Egypt, for instance, was occupied by the French in 1798, while Cyprus was loaned to the British in 1878 in exchange of Britain's favors at the Congress of Berlin following the defeat of the Ottoman Empire at the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-78. In a significant shift in military and diplomatic policy, the empire ceased to enter conflicts on its own and began to forge alliances with European countries. There were a series of such alliances with France, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, and Russia. As an example, in the Crimean War the Ottomans united with the British, French, and others against Russia. Economically, the empire had difficulty in repaying its loans to European banks; at the same time, despite the empire's label as the "Sick man of Europe", from an economic perspective, the empire's actual weakness did not reside in its developing economy, but the cultural gap which separated it from the European powers. During this time Baghdad Railway under German control became a source of international tension (economical power tool) and played some role in the origins of the First World War.[5] The empire's problems were, in fact, the result of an inability to deal with the new problems created by the conflict between external imperialism and rising internal nationalism. (See socioeconomics during the Ottoman reformation era.)

Dissolution (1908–1922)

The Second Constitutional Era (or İkinci Meşrûtiyet Devri in Turkish) marks the period of the Ottoman Empire's final dissolution. This era is dominated by the politics of the Committee of Union and Progress (or İttihâd ve Terakkî Cemiyeti in Turkish), and the movement that would become known as the "Young Turks" (or Jön Türkler in Turkish). The Young Turk Revolution began on 3 July 1908 and quickly spread throughout the empire, resulting in the sultan's announcement of the restoration of the 1876 constitution and the reconvening of parliament. The constitutional era had a lapse between Countercoup (1909) and counter-revolution 31 March Incident that ended with the sultan Abdulhamid II deposed and sent to exile in Selanik, and replaced by his brother Mehmed V Reşad. Profiting from the civil strife within the Ottoman Empire during the Young Turk Revolution, Austria-Hungary officially annexed Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1908, having occupied it following the Russo-Turkish War (1877-1878) and the Congress of Berlin (1878). Bosnia and Herzegovina was still de jure Ottoman territory until 1908.

Libya was lost following the Italo-Turkish War of 1911-1912, which was also the first war in history where airplanes were used on the battlefield.

Taking advantage of the Italo-Turkish War, the Balkan League, which was comprised of Serbia, Montenegro, Greece and Bulgaria, declared war against the Ottoman Empire; which lost most of its Balkan territories during the Balkan Wars (1912-1913). The wars in Libya and the Balkan peninsula posed the first major tests for the Committee of Union and Progress. The new Balkan states which were formed at the end of the 19th century sought additional territories from the Ottoman provinces of Albania, Macedonia, and Thrace, on the grounds of ethnic nationalism. Initially, with Russia acting as an intermediary, agreements were concluded between Serbia and Bulgaria in March 1912, and between Greece and Bulgaria in May 1912. Montenegro subsequently concluded agreements between Serbia and Bulgaria in October 1912. The Serbian-Bulgarian agreement specifically called for the partition of Macedonia, which was the chief casus belli of the First Balkan War. The main causes of the Second Balkan War were the disputes between the former Balkan allies over their newly gained territories; this then gave the Ottomans an opportunity to take back some of their lost territories in Thrace. The political repercussions of the Balkan Wars led to the coup of 1913, and the subsequent rule of the Three Pashas.

The Ottoman Empire took part in the Middle Eastern theatre of World War I, under the terms of the Ottoman-German Alliance. The Ottomans managed to win important victories in the early years of the war, particularly at the Battle of Gallipoli and the Siege of Kut; but there were setbacks as well, such as the disastrous Caucasus Campaign against the Russians. The Russian Revolution of 1917 gave the Ottomans the opportunity to regain lost ground and Ottoman forces managed to take Azerbaijan in the final stages of the war, but the Empire was forced to cede these gains at the end of World War I. A significant event in this conflict was the creation of an Armenian resistance movement in the province of Van, in response to deportations and murders of Armenians by Turks and Kurds.[citation needed] The core Armenian resistance group formed an independent provisional government in May 1915, prompting the Ottoman government to accuse the Armenians of being in collaboration with the invading Russian forces in eastern Anatolia against their native state due to the Armenian volunteer units in the Russian Army. At the end of 1917 the Armenian Revolutionary Federation formed the Democratic Republic of Armenia, comprised mostly of refugees of the Armenian Genocide (see below). The eventual Ottoman defeat came from a combination of coordinated attacks on strategic targets by British forces commanded by Edmund Allenby and the Arab Revolt of 1916–18. Given the fact that Turkish peasantry of Anatolia dropped to 40% of the pre-war levels, regardless of the method used in calculations, Ottoman Empire's casualties during this time are enormous.

During the First World War, the Ottoman government unleashed a wave of persecution on the Armenian minority. There were isolated instances of resistance in eastern Anatolia. In 1915 the Ottoman government passed the 24 April circular and then the Tehcir Law deportations between 1 June 1915 and 8 February 1916. The Teşkilat-ı Mahsusa or the Special Organization was created to deport (and in the case of adult males, outright kill) Armenians. The ACRNE gave relief support and also the court martials (local and international) covered the event extensively. In addition to any deliberate policy, fighting between Kurds and Armenians along with the Caucasus Campaign of the World War caused trouble for both the Armenian and Muslim populations of the region. An estimated 300,000 (according to Ottoman archives) to 600,000[7] (according to Arnold J. Toynbee, envoy of the British Foreign Office) and up to more than 1,000,000 (according to Armenian resources) ethnic Armenians, including women, children and the elderly, died during this period which many academics refer to as the Armenian Genocide. Turkish authorities, however, do not believe the term genocide applies.[8] Similar arguments swirl around the concurrent mass mortalities suffered by the Assyrian and later the Pontic Greek communities of the Ottoman Empire. The Turkish rejection of the genocide definition is widely viewed by the Armenians as historical revisionism, who often compare it to Holocaust denial. See the main Armenian Genocide article for more information.

Following defeat in World War I, Partitioning of the Ottoman Empire proceeded. The empire was to submit to a complete partition beginning with the initial ceasefire agreement the Armistice of Mudros, followed by the occupation of Istanbul; under the shadow of Turkish Courts-Martial of 1919-20 and the Malta exiles, and leading eventually to the Treaty of Sèvres. The Ottoman Empire's Middle Eastern territories were placed under the mandates of Britain and France, while the Mediterranean coast was ceded to Italy, and the Aegean coast ceded to Greece. Meanwhile, the Bosphorus and Dardanelles straits and Sea of Marmara were ceded to the Allied powers as an international zone.

Partitioning of the Ottoman Empire happened in the aftermath of the WWI. The empire was to submit to a complete partition beginning with the initial ceasefire agreement the Armistice of Mudros chased by occupation of Istanbul; under the shadow of Turkish Courts-Martial of 1919-20 and the Malta exiles followed by the subsequent Treaty of Sèvres. Partition of its Middle Eastern territories under the mandates of Britain and France, cede the Turkish Mediterranean coast to Italy, the Turkish Aegean coast to Greece, cede the Turkish Straits and Sea of Marmara to the Allied powers as an international zone, and recognize the Wilsonian Armenia, an extension of Democratic Republic of Armenia in eastern Anatolia (in an area which was mostly inhabited by Turks and Kurds). Britain obtained virtually everything it had sought under the secret Sykes-Picot Agreement it had made with France in 1916 for the partitioning of the Middle East. The other powers of the Triple Entente, however, soon became entangled in the Turkish War of Independence.

Occupation of Istanbul along with the occupation of İzmir mobilized the establishment of the Turkish national movement, and led to the Turkish War of Independence and the foundation of the Republic of Turkey.

The Turkish national movement, under the leadership of Mustafa Kemal (Atatürk) resulted in the creation of the Grand National Assembly (Büyük Millet Meclisi) in Ankara on 23 April 1920, which refused to recognize the Ottoman government in Istanbul and the invading forces in Turkey. Turkish revolutionaries raised a "people's army" and expelled the invading Greek, Italian and French forces. They took back the Turkish provinces which were given to the Republic of Armenia with the Treaty of Sèvres, and threatened the British forces controlling the Straits. Turkish revolutionaries eventually freed the Straits and Istanbul, and abolished the Ottoman sultanate on 1 November 1922. The last sultan, Mehmed VI Vahdettin (1918-1922), left the country on 17 November 1922, and the Republic of Turkey was officially declared with the Treaty of Lausanne on 24 July 1923. The Caliphate was constitutionally abolished several months later, on 3 March 1924. the Sultan and his family were declared persona non grata of Turkey and exiled. Fifty years later, in 1974, the Grand National Assembly of Turkey granted descendants of the former dynasty the right to acquire Turkish citizenship. See also: Ertuğrul Osman V.

The new countries created from the remnants of the empire currently number 40 (including the disputed Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus).

The fall of the Ottoman Empire can be attributed to the failure of its economic structure; the size of the empire created difficulties in economically integrating its diverse regions. Also, the empire's communication technology was not developed enough to reach all territories. In many ways, the circumstances surrounding the Ottoman Empire's fall closely paralleled those surrounding the fall of the Roman Empire, particularly in terms of the ongoing tensions between the empire's different ethnic groups, and the various governments' inability to deal with these tensions. In the case of the Ottomans, the introduction of a parliamentary system during the Tanzimat proved too late to reverse the trends that had been set in place.

Economic history

Ottoman government deliberately pursued a policy for the development of Bursa, Edirne ( Adrianople) and Istanbul, successive Ottoman capitals, into major commercial and industrial centres, considering that merchants and artisans were indispensable in creating a new metropolis. To this end, Mehmed and his successor Bayezid, also encouraged and welcomed migration of the Jews from different parts of the Europe, who were settled in Istanbul and other port cities like Salonica. The Ottoman economic mind was closely related to the basic concepts of state and society in the Middle East in which ultimate goal of a state was consolidation and extension of the ruler's power and the way to reach it was to get rich resources of revenues by making the productive classes prosperous. The ultimate aim was to increase the state revenues as much as possible without damaging the prosperity of subjects to prevent the emergence of social disorder and to keep the traditional organization of the society intact.

The organization of the treasury and chancery were developed under the Ottoman Empire more than any other Islamic government and, until the 17th century, they were the leading organization among all of their contemporaries. This organization developed a new group of people (scribial "man of the pen"), partly highly trained ulema which developed a financial professional body.The effectiveness of this financial professional body behind the success of many great Ottoman statesmen. The economic structure of the Empire was defined by its geopolitical structure. The Ottoman Empire stood between the West and the East, thus blocking the land route eastward and forcing Spanish and Portuguese navigators to set sail in search of a new route to the Orient. The empire controlled the spice route that Marco Polo once used. When Christopher Columbus first journeyed to America in 1492, the Ottoman Empire was at its zenith; an economic power which extended over three continents. Modern Ottoman studies think that the change in relations between the Ottomans and central Europe was caused by the opening of the new sea routes. It is possible to see the decline in significance of the land routes to the East (as Western Europe opened the ocean routes that bypassed the Middle East and Mediterranean) as parallel to the decline of the Ottoman Empire itself.

By developing commercial centres and routes, encouraging people to extend the area of cultivated land in the country and international trade through its dominions, the state performed basic economic functions in the empire. But in all this the financial and political interests of the state were prevalent and the Ottoman administrators could not have realized, within the social and political system they were living in, the dynamics and principles of the capitalist economy of the Modern Age.

State

Ottoman state organization was a very complex system that had two main dimensions. The military administration, and civic administration. Sultan had the highest position in the system. Civic system was based on local administrative units based on the regions characteristics. Unlike many states, the Ottoman Empire was happy to use the talents of Greeks (and other Christians), Muslims and Jews, in revolutionizing its administrative system.The rapidly expanding empire utilized loyal, skilled subjects to manage the empire, whether Albanians, Phanariot Greeks, Armenians, Serbs, Bosniaks, Hungarians or others. This eclectic administration was apparent even in the diplomatic correspondence of the empire, which was initially undertaken in the Greek language to the west, using the Greek subjects. The empire succeeded as it incorporated the energies of the vastly varied peoples it encountered, quickly transcending its roots in the Turkish nomadic migrations from Central Asia into the Middle East.

Like the Byzantines before them, the Ottomans practiced a system in which the state had control over the clergy. The nomadic Turkic forms of land tenure were largely retained — with a number of unique adjustments — in the Ottoman period. Certain pre-Islamic Turkish traditions that had survived the adoption of administrative and legal practices from Islamic Iran remained important in Ottoman administrative circles.[citation needed] The administrative structure of the empire never give way to plutocracy, thus the empire did not employ a program of economic exploitation. According to Ottoman understanding, the state's primary responsibility was to defend and extend the land of the Muslims and to ensure security and harmony within its borders within the overarching context of orthodox Islamic practice and dynastic sovereignty.

At the height of its power, the Ottoman Empire contained 29 provinces, in addition to the tributary principalities of Moldavia, Transylvania, and Wallachia.

House of Osman

The "Ottoman dynasty" (c. 1290–1922) or as an institution "House of Osman" was unprecedented and unequaled in the Islamic world for its size and duration.The Ottoman sultan, pâdişâh or "lord of kings", served as the empire's sole regent and was considered to be the embodiment of its government, though he did not always exercise complete control. The Ottoman family was ethnically Turkish in its origins, as were some of its supporters and subjects, however the dynasty immediately lost this "Turkic" identification through intermarriage with many different ethnicities.

Throughout Ottoman history, however — despite the supreme de jure authority of the sultans and the occasional exercise of de facto authority by Grand Viziers — there were many instances in which local governors acted independently, and even in opposition to the ruler. On eleven occasions, the sultan was deposed because he was perceived by his enemies as a threat to the state. There were only two attempts in the whole of Ottoman history to unseat the ruling Osmanlı dynasty, both failures, which is suggestive of a political system which for an extended period was able to manage its revolutions without unnecessary instability.

New sultans were always chosen from among the sons of the previous sultan, but there was a strong educational system, palace school, in place that was geared towards eliminating the unfit and establishing support amongst the ruling elite for the son before he was actually crowned.

After the dissolution of the empire, the new republic abolished the Caliphate and Sultanate and declared the Ottoman Dynasty as persona non grata of Turkey. Fifty years later, in 1974, the Grand National Assembly of Turkey granted descendants of the former dynasty the right to acquire Turkish citizenship. The current head of the House of Osman is Ertuğrul Osman V living in New York City.

Imperial Harem

The Harem was one of the most important powers of the Ottoman court. It was ruled by the Valide Sultan (also known as the Baş Kadın, or "Chief Lady"), mother of the reigning sultan, who held supreme power over the Harem and thus a powerful position in the court. On occasion, the Valide Sultan would become involved in state politics and through her influence could diminish the power and position of the sultan. For a period of time beginning in the 16th century and extending into the 17th, the women of the Harem effectively controlled the state in what was termed the "Sultanate of Women" (Kadınlar Saltanatı).

The harem had its own internal organization and order of formulating policies. Beneath the Valide Sultan in the hierarchy was the Haseki Sultan, the mother of the sultan's first-born son, who had the best chance of becoming the next Valide Sultan. The sultan also had four other official wives, who were each called Haseki Kadın. Next in rank below the sultan's wives were his eight favourite concubines (ikbâls or hâs odalıks), and then the other concubines whom the sultan favoured and who were termed gözde. Next in rank were the concubines of other court officials. Pupils (acemî) and novices (câriye or şâhgird) were younger women who were either waiting to be married off to someone or who had not yet graduated out of the Harem School.

Palace schools

"Palace schools" were not a single track but in two. First one was the Madrasa (Ottoman Turkish: Medrese) for the Muslims, which educated the scholars and the state officials in accordance with Islamic tradition. The financial burden of the Medrese was covered by vakifs, which gave a popular chance to children of poor families in changing their life by moving to higher social levels and income.Second track was a free-boarding school for the Christians the Enderûn, which recruited annual 3,000 students from Christian young males between 8 and 20 years old which come from one in forty families among the communities settled in Rumelia and/or the Balkans, a process named Devshirmeh (Devşirme).Orphans, single child, married boys, the Jews, Russians, shepherd's sons were exempted. Ottomans have been fairly successful in this trans- [or forced] culturation of students, which many statesmen were products of this process. This system functioned strictly for bureaucratic purposes, (ideally) the graduates were permanently devoted to government service and had no interest in forming relations with lower social groups.The incoming students were called the inner boys (Ottoman Turkish:iç oglanlar). It took seven years of professional development to graduate. The apprenticeship began with working in the Sultan's services; then mastering natural and Islamic sciences (formal education); and the last stage was developing their physical fitnesses and acquiring some vocational or artistic skills. It is reported by Madeline Zilfi that European visitors of the time commented "In making appointments, Sultan pays no regard to any pretensions on the score of wealth or rank. It is by merits that man rise..Among the Turks, honors, high posts and Judgeships are rewards of great ability and good service"

The Divan (Council)

Though the state apparatus of the Ottoman Empire underwent many reforms during its long history, a number of its basic structures remained essentially the same. Chief among these was the primacy of the sultan.

Though the sultan was the supreme monarch, the politics of the state had a number of advisors and ministers (Viziers), gathered around the council was known as Divan, or after 17th century the specific name Porte which was initially the name of the residence/administrative center for the Grand Vizier (Paşakapısı, later Babiali). Sultans' political and executive authority was delegated to viziers. Viziers were headed by the Grand Vizier. It was the Grand Vizier's duty to inform the sultan of the opinion of the Porte. The Grand Vizier had considerable independence from the Sultan with almost unlimited powers of appointment, dismissal and supervision; beginning with the late 16th century, Sultans became withdrawn from politics and Grand Vizier became the de facto head of state.[12] The Porte consisted of three viziers in the 14th century; by the 17th century, the number had grown to eleven, four of whom served as "Viziers of the Dome" (the most important ministers after the Grand Vizier).

Despite important decisions usually being made by the Divan, ultimate authority always rested with the sultan. The Divan, in the years when the Ottoman state was still a Beylik, was composed of the elders of the tribe. Its composition was later modified to include military officers and local elites (such as religious and political advisors). These individuals became known as viziers. Later still, beginning in the year 1320, a Grand Vizier (or Sadrazam) was appointed in order to assume certain of the sultan's responsibilities. The Sublime Porte, which became synonymous with the Ottoman government, was in fact the gate to the Grand Vizier's headquarters, and the place where the sultan formally greeted foreign ambassadors. At times throughout Ottoman history, the authority of the Grand Vizier was to equal (and on some occasions even surpass) that of the sultan.

Imperial government

After the Young Turk Revolution of 1908, the Ottoman state became a constitutional monarchy. Sultan did not have executive powers. A parliament was formed, with representatives chosen from the provinces.

Insignia

The Tughra were calligraphic monograms, or signatures, of the Ottoman Sultans, of which there were 35. Carved on the Sultan's seal, they bore the names of the Sultan and his father. The prayer/statement “ever victorious” was also present in most. The earliest belonged to Orhan Gazi. The ornately stylized Tughra spawned a branch of Ottoman-Turkish calligraphy.

Society

One of the successes of the Ottoman Empire was the unity that it brought about among its highly varied populations. While the main reason for this was the Empire's military strength and use of intimidation as a means of control in newly conquered territories, it may also be ascribed in part to the laws of Islam, which stated that Muslims, Christians and Jews — who constituted the vast majority of the Ottoman population — were all related in that they were "People of the Book" (Ahl al-Kitâb). As early as the reign of Mehmed II, extensive rights were granted to Phanariot Greeks, and many Jews were invited to settle in Ottoman territory.

Concept of nation

Under Ottoman rule the major religious groups were allowed to establish their own communities, called millets, each retaining its own religious laws, traditions, and language under the general protection of the sultan. Millets were led by religious chiefs, who served as secular as well as religious leaders and thus had a substantial interest in the continuation of Ottoman rule. After conquering Constantinople, Mehmed II used his army to restore its physical structure. Old buildings were repaired, streets, aqueducts, and bridges were constructed, sanitary facilities were modernised, and a vast supply system was established to provide for the city's inhabitants.

Ultimately, the Ottoman Empire's relatively high degree of tolerance for ethnic differences proved to be one of its greatest strengths in integrating the new regions until the rise of nationalism (this non-assimilative policy became a weakness during the dissolution of the empire that neither the first or second parliaments could successfully address).

Slavery

The Ottomans came from a nomadic people among whom slavery was little practiced. Also, from the Islamic perspective, the Qur'an states "O mankind! We created you from a single soul, male and female, and made you into nations and tribes, so that you may come to know one another. Truly, the most honoured of you in God's sight is the greatest of you in piety. God is All-Knowing, All-Aware" — 49:13 although in practice there were cultural differences in how this was interpreted (Islam and Slavery covers these perspectives). In practice, "slavery" as such did not begin to become an "issue" in Ottoman society - that is, a cause of debate and concern - until the 19th century when the Empire came under pressure from Western European countries to outlaw the practice - which had been generally considered valid under Islamic law effectively since the beginning. Policies developed by various Sultans throughout the 19th century attempted to curtail the Slave trade but, since slavery did have centuries of religious backing and sanction, could never directly abolish the institution outright - as had gradually happened in Western Europe and the Americas. Eventually, trafficking in slaves was expressively forbidden by utilizing what were effectively clever loopholes in the application of sharia, or Islamic law. For example, by the terms of the sharia, any slaves who were taken could not be kept as slaves if they had been Muslim prior to their capture. They could also not be captured legitimately without a formal declaration of war, which could only be issued by the Sultan. As late Ottoman Sultans, who wished to halt slavery, obviously did not authorize raids for the purpose of capturing slaves, it effectively became illegal to procure any slaves at all, although those already in Slavery would remain slaves, allowing slavery to die a slow and quiet death in the Ottoman lands.
Slavery was an important part of Ottoman society. It was Arab traders who started the trans-Saharan slave trade, exporting black slaves from Ghana and other West African countries as far back as AD 1100 and the practice carried over into Ottoman reign. The Ottoman slave was far different from the typical image of a beaten agricultural worker, they could achieve high status. Harem guards and janissaries are some of the better known positions a slave could hold, but slaves actually were at the forefront of Ottoman politics. The majority of officials of the Ottoman government were bought slaves, obviously they were raised free, but they were integral to the success of the Ottomans from the fourteenth century to the nineteenth. By raising and specially training slaves as officials, not only did they get administrators with intricate knowledge of government and fanatic loyalty, but they cut back corruption as an administrator would have no ties in the region, thus he would not favor one person over another when granting contracts.

The Devşirme system could be considered as a form of slavery, in that the Sultans had absolute power over its members. However, the 'slave' or kul (subject) of the Sultan had high status within Ottoman society, and this group included the highest officers of state and the military elite, all well remunerated, so to consider them 'slaves' (in the way the term is generally understood in the West) is misleading.

Rural slavery was largely a Caucasian phenomenon, carried to Anatolia and Rumelia after the Circassian migration in 1864. Conflicts emerged within the immigrant community and the Ottoman Establishment, at times, intervened on the side of the slaves.

Lifestyle

The Ottoman court life in many aspects assembled ancient traditions of the Persian Shahs, but had many Greek and European influences.

The court (Topkapı)

The culture that evolved around the court was known as the Ottoman Way. To get a high position in the empire, one had to be skilled in the Way. This included knowing the languages Persian, Arabic and Ottoman Turkish, and how to behave in different settings: in court, in front of the sultan, and on formal and religious occasions. The Ottoman Way also separated the nobles from the lower classes. Peasants and villagers were called Turks, while nobles were called Ottomans.

The provincial capitals

Apart from the Ottoman court, there were also large metropolitan centers where the Ottoman influence expressed itself with a diversity similar to metropolises of today: Sarajevo, Skopje, Thessaloniki, Dimashq, Baghdad, Beirut, Jerusalem, Makkah and Algiers were other cities that had their own examples of Ottoman diversity, with their own small versions of Provincial Administration replicating the culture of the Ottoman court locally.

Culture

With Constantinople (today known as Istanbul) as its capital, the Ottoman Empire was in many respects an Islamic successor to earlier Mediterranean empires — namely the Roman and Byzantine empires — filling the centuries-old power vacuum left behind by them in roughly the same territories around the Mediterranean Sea, while adopting their traditions, art and institutions; and adding new dimensions to them. The Turkish Bath which has its origins in the Roman Bath, Ottoman classical music which was largely inspired by Byzantine church hymns, and Ottoman mosques which were greatly influenced by the design of the Hagia Sophia, a Byzantine cathedral, are only a few examples. As such, the Ottomans regarded themselves as the heirs to both Roman and Islamic traditions, and hence rulers of a "Universal Empire" through this "unification of cultures".

In the course of its lifespan, it undertook, more than once, programmes of both Islamisation and modernisation (reform), blurring the difference between the West and the East.The golden age of the Ottoman Empire was during the reign of Suleiman the Magnificent in the 16th Century. This could be observed in many different fields, such as the architectural masterpieces of Koca Mimar Sinan Ağa, and the domination of the Mediterranean Sea by the Ottoman Navy, led by Barbarossa Hayreddin Pasha. The Ottoman Empire reached its territorial peak in the 17th century. It developed its own distinctive culture, from a diverse system of Millets to a multi-ethnic state (see Ottomanism); which was influential in both Europe and the Muslim lands.

Many different cultures lived under the umbrella of the Ottoman Empire, and as a result, a specifically "Ottoman" culture can be difficult to define except the regional centers and capital. However, there was also, to a great extent, a specific melding of cultures that can be said to have reached its highest levels among the Ottoman elite, who were composed of myriad ethnic and religious groups. This Ottoman multicultural perspective, which was millet is reflected in their policies, as the Ottoman State pursued multi-cultural and multi-religious policies. As the Ottomans moved further west, the Ottoman leaders absorbed some of the culture of conquered regions. Intercultural marriages also played their part in creating the characteristic Ottoman elite culture. When compared to Turkish folk culture, the influence of these new cultures in creating the culture of the Ottoman elite was very apparent.

Architecture

Ottoman architecture was influenced by Seljuk, Persian, Byzantine Greek, and Islamic architecture, but came to develop a style all of its own. The years 1300–1453 (Rise period) constitute the early or first Ottoman period, when Ottoman art was in search of new ideas. The years 1453–1600, known as the classical period, coinciding with the Empire's expansion, is the period when Ottoman art was at its most confident. During the years of the Stagnation period, Ottoman architecture moved away from this style however. During the Tulip Era, it was under the influence of the highly ornamented styles of Western Europe; Baroque, Rococo, Empire and other styles intermingled.

Concepts of Ottoman architecture mainly circle around the mosque. The mosque was integral to society, city planning and communal life. Besides the mosque, it is also possible to find good examples of Ottoman architecture in soup kitchens, theological schools, hospitals, Turkish baths and tombs.

Examples of Ottoman architecture of the classical period, aside from İstanbul and Edirne, can also be seen in Egypt, Eritrea, Tunisia, Algiers, the Balkans and Hungary, where mosques, bridges, fountains and schools were built.

Language

Many ethnic groups with their own languages (e.g. Jews, Greeks, Armenians etc.) continued to speak them within their families and neighborhoods (mahalles). In villages where two or more populations lived together, the inhabitants would often speak each other's language. In cosmopolitan cities, people often spoke their family languages, some Ottoman or Persian if they were educated, and some Arabic if they were Muslim. In the last two centuries, French and English emerged as popular languages, especially among the Christian Levantine communities. The elite learned French at school, and used European products as a fashion statement. The use of Turkish grew steadily under the Ottomans, but, since they were still interested in their two other official languages, they kept these in use as well. Usage of these came to be limited, though, and specific: Persian served mainly as a literary language, while Arabic was used solely for religious rites. At this time many famous Persian poets emerged.

Ottoman Turkish was a variety of Turkish, highly influenced by Persian and Arabic. Ottomans had three influential languages; Turkish, Persian, Arabic but they did not have a parallel status. Throughout the vast Ottoman bureaucracy and, in particular, within the Ottoman court in later times, a version of Turkish was spoken, albeit with a vast mixture of both Arabic and Persian grammar and vocabulary. If the basic grammar was still largely Turkish, the inclusion of virtually any word in Arabic or Persian in Ottoman made it a language which was essentially incomprehensible to any Ottoman subject who had not mastered Arabic, Persian or both. The two varieties of the language became so differentiated and ordinary people were so generally illiterate (about 2–3% until the early 19th century and just about 15% at the end of 19th century), that ordinary people had to hire special "request-writers" (arzıhâlcis) in order to be able to communicate with the government.

Music

As music was an important part of the education of the Ottoman elite, a number of the Ottoman sultans were accomplished musicians and composers themselves, such as Selim III, whose compositions are still frequently performed today. Due to a geographic and cultural divide between the capital and other areas, two broadly distinct styles of music arose in the Ottoman Empire: Ottoman classical music, and folk music.

Ottoman classical music arose largely from a confluence of Byzantine music, Arabic music, and Persian music. Compositionally, it is organised around rhythmic units called usul, which are somewhat similar to meter in Western music, and melodic units called makam, which bear some resemblance to Western musical modes. The instruments used are a mixture of Anatolian and Central Asian instruments (the saz, the bağlama, the kemence), other Middle Eastern instruments (the ud, the tanbur, the kanun, the ney), and — later in the tradition — Western instruments (the violin and the piano).

In the provinces, several different kinds of Folk music were created. The most dominant regions with their distinguished musical styles are: Balkan-Thracian Türküs, North-Eastern (Laz) Türküs, Aegean Türküs, Central Anatolian Türküs, Eastern Anatolian Türküs, and Caucasian Türküs. There is no separate style for Istanbul, because Turkish Classical Music was preferred there.

Cuisine

When one talks of Ottoman cuisine, one refers to the cuisine of the capital — Istanbul, and the regional capital cities, where the melting pot of cultures created a common cuisine that all the populations enjoyed. This diverse cuisine was honed in the Imperial Palace's kitchens by chefs brought from certain parts of the empire to create and experiment with different ingredients. The creations of the Ottoman Palace's kitchens filtered to the population, for instance through Ramadan events, and through the cooking at the Yalıs of the Pashas, and from there on spread to the rest of the population.

Today, the Ottoman cusine lives in the Balkans, Anatolia and the Middle East; i.e. in regions that are common heirs to what was once the Ottoman life-style, and their cuisines offer treacherous circumstantial evidence of this fact]. Besides, one should not forget that it is typical of any great cuisine in the world to be based on local varieties and on mutual exchange and enrichment among them, but at the same time to be homogenized and harmonized by a metropolitan tradition of refined taste

Religion

Following the conquest of Constantinople, in 1453, Mehmed II did not disband the Greek Orthodox Ecumenical Patriarchate, but instead brought it under close control by installing Gennadius II Scholarius as the patriarch — after receiving from him a hefty fee — and thus establishing him as the ethnarch of the Millet of Rum; that is, the Orthodox Christian subjects of the empire, regardless of their ethnicity. Mehmet handed to Gennadius a firman which he had signed, giving to the Patriarch personal inviolability, exemption from taxes, freedom of movement and security from dispositions. The Patriarchal law-courts alone had penal jurisdiction over the clergy, the Turkish authorities could not arrest anyone of episcopal rank without the permission of the Patriarch.Pathriarchal courts had full jurisdiction over all affairs concerning the Orthodox people which had religious connotations (marriage, divorce, testaments etc.) and they administered justice according to the cannon law of the Byzantines and according to Byzantine civil and customary law.The Patriarch had to become a politician, to plead and intrigue for his people at the Sultan's government and at the same time, he had to use his religious power in order to make sure that the Orthodox people accept Sultan's authority. He was responsible for orderly and loyal behaviour of his flock and for ensuring that the taxes were paid. This new system, above all, involved the Great Church in legal and financial activities far greater than it had known before.

Under the millet system — which applied to other non-Muslim religious groups as well—people were considered subjects, or rather raya (i.e. cattle), of the empire but were not subject to the Muslim faith or Muslim law. The Orthodox millet, for instance, was still officially legally subject to Justinian's Code, which had been in effect in the Byzantine Empire for 900 years. Also, as the largest group of non-Muslim subjects (or zimmi) of the Islamic Ottoman state, the Orthodox millet was granted a number of special privileges in the fields of politics and commerce, in addition to having to pay higher taxes than Muslim subjects.

Similar millets were established for the Ottoman Jewish community, who were under the authority of the Haham Başı or Ottoman Chief Rabbi; the Armenian Orthodox community, who were under the authority of a head bishop; and a number of other religious communities as well.

Adoption of Islam

Before adopting Islam — a process that was greatly facilitated by the Abbasid victory at the 751 Battle of Talas, which ensured Abbasid influence in Central Asia — the Turkic peoples practised a variety of shamanism. After this battle, many of the various Turkic tribes — including the Oghuz Turks, who were the ancestors of both the Seljuks and the Ottomans — gradually converted to Islam, and brought the religion with them to Anatolia beginning in the 11th century.

State and Religion

The Ottoman Empire was, in principle, tolerant towards Christians and Jews (the "Ehl-i Kitab", or "People of the Book", according to the Koran) but not towards the polytheists, in accordance with the Sharia law.

The Ottoman Sultan Mehmed II allowed the local Christians to stay in Constantinople (Istanbul) after conquering the city in 1453, and to retain their institutions such as the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate. In 1461 Sultan Mehmed II established the Armenian Patriarchate of Constantinople. Previously, the Byzantines considered the Armenian Church as heretical and thus did not allow them to build churches inside the walls of Constantinople. In 1492, when the Muslims and Sephardic Jews were expelled from Spain during the Spanish Inquisition, the Ottoman Sultan Bayezid II sent his fleet under Kemal Reis to save them and granted the refugees the right to settle in the Ottoman Empire.

The state's relationship with the Greek Orthodox Church was largely peaceful, and recurrent oppressive measures taken against the Greek church were a deviation from generally established practice. The church's structure was kept intact and largely left alone but under close control and scrutiny until the Greek War of Independence of 1821–1831 and, later in the 19th and early 20th centuries, the rise of the Ottoman constitutional monarchy, which was driven to some extent by nationalistic currents, tried to be balanced with Ottomanism. Other Orthodox churches, like the Bulgarian Orthodox Church, were dissolved and placed under the jurisdiction of the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate; until Sultan Abdülaziz established the Bulgarian Exarchate in 1870 and reinstated the autonomy of the Bulgarian Church.

Law

Ottoman legal system accepted the Religious law over its subjects. The Ottoman Empire was organized around a system of local jurisprudence. Legal administration in the Ottoman Empire was part of a larger scheme of balancing central and local authority.[37] Ottoman power revolved crucially around the administration of the rights to land, which gave a space for the local authority develop the needs of the local millet.[37] The jurisdictional complexity of the Ottoman Empire was aimed to permit the integration of culturally and religiously different groups.[37] The Ottoman system had three court systems: one for Muslims, one for non-Muslims, involving appointed Jews and Christians ruling over their respective religious communities, and the "trade court". The entire system was regulated from above by means of the administrative Kanun, i.e. laws. Kanun system based upon the Turkic Yasa and Töre which were developed in the pre-Islamic era. The kanun law system, on the other hand, was the secular law of the sultan, and dealt with issues not clearly addressed by the sharia system.

These court categories were not, however, wholly exclusive in nature: for instance, the Islamic courts — which were the empire's primary courts — could also be used to settle a trade conflict or disputes between litigants of differing religions, and Jews and Christians often went to them so as to obtain a more forceful ruling on an issue. The Ottoman state tended not to interfere with non-Muslim religious law systems, despite legally having a voice to do so through local governors. The Islamic Sharia law system had been developed from a combination of the Qur'ān; the Hadīth, or words of the prophet Muhammad; ijmā', or consensus of the members of the Muslim community; qiyas, a system of analogical reasoning from previous precedents; and local customs. Both systems were taught at the empire's law schools, which were in Istanbul and Bursa.

Tanzimat reforms, had a drastic effect on the law system. In 1877, the civil law (excepting family law) was codified in the Mecelle code. Later codifications covered commercial law, penal law and civil procedure.

Military

Ottoman Army

The first military unit of the Ottoman State was an army that was organized by Osman I from the tribesmen inhabiting western Anatolia in the late 13th century. The military system became an intricate organization with the advance of the Empire.

The Ottoman military was a complex system of recruiting and fief-holding. The main corps of the Ottoman Army included:

Janissary: Infantry units recruited at a very young age from the non-Muslim ethnic groups of the empire and raised as Muslim Turkish warriors; also forming the Sultan's household troops and bodyguard.

Sipahi: Elite cavalry knights who were granted tımars (fiefs) throughout the empire's lands. Their alternative name was Tîmârlı Sipahi (Fiefed Knight).

Akıncı: Frontline cavalry units of the Ottoman Army which raided and scouted the border areas and outposts.

Mehterân: Ottoman Army Band which played martial tunes during military campaigns. The mehterân was usually associated with the Janissary corps.

The Ottoman army was once among the most advanced fighting forces in the world, being one of the first to employ muskets. The Ottoman cavalry used bows and short swords and often applied nomad tactics similar to those of the Mongol Empire; such as pretending to retreat while surrounding the enemy forces inside a crescent-shaped formation and then making the real attack.

Starting from the Battle of Kosovo in 1389 and the Battle of Nicopolis in 1396, the Ottoman army quickly advanced towards central Europe, capturing Hungary with the Battle of Mohács in 1526 and twice laying siege to Vienna, in 1529 and 1683.

The modernization of the Ottoman Empire in the 19th century started with the military. In 1826 Sultan Mahmud II abolished the Janissary corps and established the modern Ottoman army, which he named as the Nizam-ı Cedid (New Order). The Ottoman army was also the first institution to hire foreign experts and send its officers for training in western European countries.

Ottoman Navy

The Ottomans began to develop a navy in the early 14th century, and the conquest of İmralı Island in the Sea of Marmara in 1308 marked the first Ottoman naval victory (for a timeline of the naval actions of the Ottoman fleet, see the History of the Turkish Navy.) In 1321 the Ottoman fleet made its first landings on Thrace in southeastern Europe, and vastly contributed to the expansion of the empire's territories on the European continent. The Ottoman navy was one of the first to use cannons, and the Battle of Zonchio in 1499 went down to history as the first naval battle where cannons were used on ships. It was also the Ottoman navy which initiated the conquest of North Africa, with the addition of Algeria and Egypt to the Ottoman Empire in 1517. The Battle of Preveza in 1538 and the Battle of Djerba in 1560 marked the apex of Ottoman naval domination in the Mediterranean Sea. The Ottomans also confronted the Portuguese forces based in Goa at the Indian Ocean in numerous battles between 1538 and 1566. In 1553, the Ottoman admiral Salih Reis conquered Morocco and the lands of North Africa beyond the Strait of Gibraltar, extending Ottoman territory into the Atlantic Ocean. In 1566 the Sultan of Aceh asked for support against the Portuguese and declared allegiance to the Ottoman Empire, which sent its Indian Ocean fleet under Kurtoğlu Hızır Reis to Sumatra. The fleet landed at Aceh in 1569, and the event marked the easternmost Ottoman territorial expansion. In 1585 the Ottoman admiral Murat Reis captured Lanzarote[38] of the Canary Islands. In 1617 the Ottoman fleet captured Madeira in the Atlantic Ocean, before raiding Sussex, Plymouth, Devon, Hartland Point, Cornwall and the other counties of western England in August 1625.[38] In 1627 Ottoman naval ships, accompanied by corsairs from the Barbary Coast, raided the Shetland Islands, Faroe Islands, Denmark, Norway and Iceland.Between 1627 and 1631 the same Ottoman force also raided the coasts of Ireland and Sweden.[38] In 1655 a force of 40 Ottoman ships captured the Isle of Lundy in the Bristol Channel, which served as the main base for Ottoman naval and privateering operations in the North Atlantic until 1660, when Ottoman ships appeared off the eastern coasts of North America, particularly being sighted at the British colonies like Newfoundland and Virginia.The overseas territorial acquisitions of the Ottoman Navy further expanded the extent of the Ottoman sphere of influence on distant lands in both the Indian and Atlantic oceans, such as the addition of Aceh (1569) as a vassal state to the Ottoman Empire, and temporary occupations like those of Lanzarote (1585), Madeira (1617), Vestmannaeyjar (1627) and Lundy (1655-1660).

Starting from the defeat against the combined British-French-Russian navies at the Battle of Navarino in 1827, and the subsequent loss of Algeria (1830) and Greece (1832), the Ottoman naval power gradually began to decline, and so did the Ottoman control over the empire's distant overseas territories. Sultan Abdülaziz (reigned 1861-1876) made attempts to reestablish a strong Ottoman navy, which soon became the world's third largest fleet after that of Britain and France with its 21 battleships and 173 other types of warships. But the vast size of the navy was too much of a burden for the collapsing Ottoman economy to sustain. Sultan Abdülhamid II (reigned 1876-1908) distrusted the navy, for the admirals supported the reformist Midhat Pasha and the First Ottoman Parliament of 1876. Claiming that the large and expensive navy was of no use against the Russians during the Russo-Turkish War (1877-1878), he locked most of the fleet inside the Golden Horn, where the ships decayed for the next 30 years.

Following the Young Turk Revolution in 1908, the Committee of Union and Progress which effectively took control of the country sought to develop a strong Ottoman naval force. The poor condition of the fleet during the Ottoman Naval Parade of 1910 saddened every Turk who saw it, and the Ottoman Navy Foundation was established in order to purchase new ships through public donations. Those who made donations received different types of medals according to the size of their contributions. With this public money, the Ottoman government ordered large battleships like Sultan Osman I and Reşadiye, but despite the payment for both ships, the United Kingdom confiscated them at the outbreak of World War I and renamed them as HMS Agincourt and HMS Erin. This caused some ill-feeling towards Britain among the Ottoman public, and the German Empire took advantage of the situation by sending the battlecruiser Yavuz Sultan Selim and light cruiser Midilli which entered service in the Ottoman fleet. This event significantly contributed to the decision of supporting Germany in the First World War, with whom the Ottomans sided.

Ottoman Air Force

The Ottoman Air Force was founded in June 1909, making it one of the oldest combat aviation organizations in the world. Its formation came about after the Ottoman Empire sent two Turkish pilots to the International Aviation Conference in Paris. After witnessing the growing importance of an air combat support branch, the Ottoman government decided to organize its own military aviation program. For this purpose, officers were sent to Europe by the end of 1910 to participate in the study of combat flight. However, because of bad living conditions, the student program was aborted and the trainees returned to Turkey in the spring of 1911. Although left without any governmental guidelines for establishing an air force, the Ottoman Minister of Defence of the time, Mahmut Şevket Paşa, continued to encourage the idea of a military aviation program and sent officers Fesa and Yusuf Kenan, who achieved the highest maneuvering points in a piloting test conducted in 1911, to France for receiving a more satisfactory flight education. In late 1911 Süreyya Ilmen was instructed with founding the Havacılık Komisyonu (Aviation Commission) bound to the Harbiye Bakanlığı Fen Kıtaları Müstahkem Genel Müfettişliği (War Ministry Science Detachment General Inspectorship). On February 21, 1912, Fesa and Yusuf Kenan completed their flight education and returned home with the 780th and 797th French aviation diplomas. In the same year, eight more Turkish officers were sent to France for flight education.

The Ottoman Empire started preparing its first pilots and planes, and with the founding of the Hava Okulu (Air Academy) in Istanbul on July 3, 1912, the empire began to tutor its own flight officers. The founding of the Air Academy quickened advancement in the military aviation program, increased the number of enlisted persons within it, and gave the new pilots an active role in the Armed Forces. In May 1913 the world's first specialized Reconnaissance Training Program was activated by the Air Academy and the first separate Reconnaissance division was established by the Air Force.

Because of the lack of experience of the Turkish pilots, the first stage (1912) of the Balkan Wars (1912-1913) ended with the loss of several aircraft. However, the second stage (1913) was marked with great success since the pilots had become more battle-hardened. Many recruits joined the Air Academy following a surge of Turkish nationalism during the war.

With the end of the Balkan Wars a modernization process started and new planes were purchased. In June 1914 a new military academy, Deniz Hava Okulu (Naval Aviation Academy) was founded, also in Istanbul. With the outbreak of the First World War, the modernization process stopped aprubtly, but in 1915 some German officers came to the Ottoman Empire and some Turkish officers went to Germany for flight education.

The Ottoman Air Force fought on many fronts during the First World War, from Galicia in the west to the Caucasus in the east and Yemen in the south. Efforts were made to reorganize the Ottoman Air Force, but this ended in 1918 with the end of the First World War and the occupation of Istanbul.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

THE TURKS

The Republic of Turkey, founded in 1923, has its roots in two historical sources deep in the depths of the past. One of these resources inherited by modern Turkey is the successful and shining history of the Turks over a time frame of more than 4,000 years. The other is the fact that Turks have been settled in Anatolia since the 11th century.

     The Huns

The first Turkish tribe that is mentioned in history is the Huns. Clear records about the Huns made their appearance in the 8th century B.C. Chinese sources refer to the Huns as Hiung-nu and in time, some of the Huns migrated to the West.

     The Gokturks

Founded in 552 AD by Bumin Khan, the Gokturks engaged in widespread diplomatic activity. The famed Orhun epitaphs from this period are made up of the tombstone inscriptions of Tonyukuk (d.720), Kültigin (d.731) and Bilge Kagan (d.734)

        The Uygurs

The rule of the Göktürks was brought to an end in the year 745 by the Uygurs, who were of the same ethnic stock as themselves. In this manner all the Turks who had converged under the banner of the Göktürks were dispersed to that of the Uygurs that the agricultural basin where they lived became known as Turkistan. In the year 1229, the Mongols put an end to Uygur sovereignty; the Uygurs however, became their cultural and political mentors.

        The Turks and Islam

Contacts between the Turks and Moslems commenced at the beginning of the 8th century and some of the Turks began to favour Islam. However the pro-Arab policies of the Omayads (661-750 A.D) restricted these relations somewhat. Later, many Moslem Turks took office in the Abbside government and because of this, great interest in the Islamic world spread among the Turks beyond the River Ceyhun. Commercial caravans also played a major role in the spread of Islam into the steppes of Central Asia. The Turks became fully Moslem by the 10th century, and this resulted in the achievement to political unity. Following these developments, the first Moslem Turkish state was formed by the Karahans.

            The Karahans

The Karahans ruled between 990-1212 in Turkistan and Maveraünnehir. The reign of the Karahans is especially significant from the point of view of Turkish culture and art history. It is during this period that mosques, schools, bridges and caravansarays were constructed in the cities. Buhara and Samarkand became centres of learning. In the period, the Turkish language found the means to develop. Among the most important works of the period is Kutadgu Bilik (translated as “The Knowledge That Gives Happiness”) written by Yusuf Has Hacib, between the years 1069-1070.

       The Ghaznavids

The Ghaznavi state was formed in the year 963 by the Turkish ruler Sevuktekin and is one of the first Moslem Turkish states and worked relentlessly for the expansion of Islam in India. The Ghaznavids finally collapsed in 1186 and were assimilated by the Oguz.
The Turkish scholar Ebu Reyhan el-Beyruni makes this period an important one within Islamic cultural history and wrote the famed work by the poet Firdevsi, the ?ehname, was also written in this period (A.D. 1009)

         The Seljuks

The O?uz, who destroyed the Ghaznavid state, succeeded in bringing Anatolia, Iraq, the southern part of the Caucasus, Azerbaijan and the north of Iran under Turkish rule. The O?uz had first formed the Göktürk Empire in the 6th century; after the expansion of Islam among the Turks, but among the Turks the Oguz came to be called the Turkmens.

Tu?rul Bey and Ça?ry (Çakyr) Bey were the grandsons of Seljuks whose name the Seljuks Dynasty adopted. In their time they, and the O?uz, known as the Seljuks in history, subdued Horasan, defeated the Ghaznavid ruler Mesud in Dandanakan Battle and established the Great Seljuk empire in 1040.

In 1071, Alp Arslan (1063-1072) fought the battle of Malazgirt and having defeated the Byzantine Emperor’s forces in this battle opened the doors of Anatolia to the Moslem Turk.

The year 1071 is considered to be the beginning of the Turks and that of Islam Anatolia. It is following this date that the Turks fully conquered the whole of Anatolia and established the Anatolian Seljuk state there as a part of the great Seljuk Empire.

The first schooling institutions, the Moslem theological medreses, were formed in Anatolia during the time of Kylyç Arslan (1153-1192), one in Konya and the other in Aksaray. Following the establishment of these two medreses the medreses of Syrcaly in Konya (1242-1243), Karatay (1251), Ynce Minareli (1251-1253), Atabekkiye (after 1251-1268), Gökmedrese in Sivas (1271), Buruciye (1271-1272), Çifte Minareli (1271), and the Cacoglu in Kirsehir (1272) were established.

The Seljuks also attributed much importance to the medical sciences and in almost all their cities medical institutions called Darush-Shifa, Darul-Afiye and Darus-Sihna and hospitals were set up. The main medical treatment centres are the Gevher Nesibe in Kayseri (1205), the Izzettin I Keykavus in Sivas (1217), the Torumtay in Amasya (1266), the Muinuddin Pervane in Tokat (1275) and the Pervaneoglu Ali in Kastamonu (1272).

Because of the Persian influence coming from Iran among the intellectuals, the administrators, the men of arts and the traders, the Anatolian Seljuk state became increasingly affected by Iranian culture and language.

                      The Beyliks

The Period Principalities

Political unity in Anatolia was disrupted from the time of the collapse of the Anatolia Seljuk State at the beginning of the 14th century (1308), when until the beginning of the 16th century each of the regions in the country fell under the domination of Beyliks (Principalities). Eventually, the Ottoman Principality which destroyed all the other Principalities and restored political unity in Anatolia, was established in the Eski?ehir, Bilecik and Bursa areas.

On the other hand, the area in central Anatolia east of the Ankara-Aksaray line as far as the area of Erzurum remained under the administration of the Ilhani General Governor until 1336. The infighting in Ilhan gave the principalities in Anatolia their complete independence. In addition to this, new Turkish principalities were formed in the localities previously under Ilhan occupation.

During the 14th century, the Turkomans, who made up the western Turks, started to re-establish their previous political sovereignty in the Islamic world.

Rapid developments in the Turkish language and culture toot place during the time of the Anatolia Principalities. In this period, the Turkish language began to be used in the sciences and in literature, and became the official language of the Principalities. New medreses were established and progress was made in the medical sciences during this period.

Gülsehri, Nesimi (d.1404) and ahmedi (1325-1412) are the prominent Turkish language poets of the 15th century.

The TURKS Source

Turk Turkic Turkish History

The 16 Great Turkic Empires

1) The "GREAT HUN EMPIRE" - 204 B.C - 216 A.D

Founder - Mete (Bagatir)Area - At the north, Siberia; south, Tibet - Kashmir; east, Pacific Ocean; west, Caspian Sea; (Total Area - 18,000,000 Km 2)

2) The "WESTERN HUN EMPIRE" - 48 - 216 A.D

Founder - Panu
Area - The area over present Central Asia

3) The "EUROPEAN HUN EMPIRE" - 275 - 454 A.D

Founder - Muncuk, Oktar, Rua & Aybars (brothers)
Area - Southern Russia, Romania, Northern
Yugoslavia, Hungary, Austria, Chekoslovakia, Southern & Central Germany; The area from eastern France to the Ural mountains; from northern Hungary to the Byzantine Empire; (Total Area - 4,000,000 Km 2)

4) The "WHITE HUN EMPIRE" - 420 - 552 A.D

Founder - Aksuvar (Aksungur)
Area - Half of northern India,
Afghanistan, parts of Turkistan (Total Area - 3,500,000 Km 2)

5) The "GOKTURK EMPIRE" - 552 - 743 A.D

Founder - Bumin Khan (Tumen)
Area - The inacessible valleys of the Altay Mountains (Ergenikon) (Total Area - 18,000,000 Km 2)

6) The "AVAR EMPIRE" - 562 - 796 A.D

Founder - Bayar Khan
Area - The area between the Volga, Hungary and Bessarabia

7) The "HAZAR EMPIRE" - 602 - 1016 A.D

Founder - There are no historical data as to the original founder, however, its greatest ruler was Hakan Yusuf.
Area - The Hazars who are believed to be an offshoot of the Gokturks migrated to the West and formed a state stretching from the Caucasian Mntns to the Danube and to the middle of and Southern Russia.

8 ) The "UYGUR EMPIRE" - 740 - 1335 A.D

Founder - Kutlug Bilgekul Khan
Area - Central Asia and Northern Mongolia.

9) The "KARAHAN" - 932 - 1212 A.D

Founder - Saltuk Bugra Han
Area - All the Trans-Oxus area including the area between the Issyk and Balkash Lakes

10) The "GAZNELI EMPIRE" - 962 - 1183 A.D

Founder - Alptekin
Area - The area from the Trans-Oxus to the Ganges River, and from the shores of the Caspian to the steppes of the Pamir. (Total Area - 4,700,000 Km 2)

11) The "SELCUK EMPIRE" - 1040 - 1157 A.D

Founder - Seljuk
Area - At the East, Balkash and Issyk Lakes and the Tarim Derya; At the West, Aegean and the Mediterranean shores; At the North, Aral Lake, Caspian Sea, Caucasian and the Black Sea; At the South, the area including Arabia and the sea Omman. (Total Area - 10,000,000 Km 2)

12) The "HARZEMSHAH" - 1077 - 1231 A.D

Founder - Kudrettin Mehmet (Harzemshah)
Area - Persia, Southern Caucasia, Dagistan, Afghanistan and most of Central Asia. (Total Area - 5,000,000 Km 2)

13) The "GOLDEN HORDE" - 1224 - 1502 A.D

Founder - Batur Han
Area - Eastern Europe, the Western Ural Area, the Crimea and the area to the north of the Volga.

14) The "EMPIRE OF TIMUR KHAN" - 1369 - 1501 A.D

Founder - Timur Gurgani
Area - At the West, Balkans; At the North, Volga shores; At the South, Indian Ocean; At the East, Central Asia;

15) The "EMPIRE OF BABUR" - 1526 - 1858 A.D

Founder - Babur Shah
Area - Afghanistan and India (Total Area - 2,700,000 Km 2)

16) The "OTTOMAN EMPIRE" - 1299 - 1922 A.D

Founder - Osman Bey
Area - Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Arabia, Jordan, Israel, Syria, Iraq, Anatolia, Caucasia, the Crimea, Bessarabia, Romania, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, Greece, Cyprus, Hungary, the Sudan,…..and, the Black Sea, the Mediterranean Sea and the Red Sea were for a time - Turkish Lakes. (Total Area - 20,000,000 Km 2)

from turkiye.net

Turkish National Anthem by a 4 years old.