Ruling institution of the Ottoman Empire

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The governing of the Ottoman Empire is more than the description of its court, customs, ceremonies, and officials with catalogues of their provinces and duties.

For more details on this topic, see Culture of the Ottoman Empire.

Most of the structures in Ottoman government can be traced back through to Tartary to China and through Parthia and Rome to Babylon and Egypt. From the crusader days, the Ottoman Empire thought of itself as an Islamic state and it was recognized as an Asian empire by Westerners. However, Ottomans ruled over many Christians, many of their able men were Christian, and their civilization was influenced greatly by Christianity. In some discussions that is cited as the real "tragedy of Turk."

[edit] Initial Organization

The Ottoman system, as initially designed did not seem to function like any other system. For outsiders; it lacked administrative, institutional, and governmental apparatus. Most of the western writers believe that the nature of Empires conquests made it stable, not their ability to organize and channel the social structure in the regions. It was claimed that the personal character of the sultans were the major reason for stabilization of the state. Personality and spirit of the sultans were given as a reason for the loyal and devoted followers. This view, which puts the sultans in the center, was originated through comparing the fall of Byzantine to rise of Ottomans. It is claimed that this view is partial and do not really try to understand the social organization of the Ottoman system. It ignores the difficulties of finding these able men and assumes (biased) a generation of a stable state can only be achieved through assimilation.

While the Christian world was in its middle age, the Muslim world was in a constant change. Ottomans used this situation in favor of developing their state. Muslim artisans, merchants, bureaucrats, theologians, and teachers were looking for opportunities. Bursa and Iznik became the centers for these people. In these centers, schools of theology were flourishing and the Ottomans used this opportunity in developing advanced studies in learning and philosophical discussions. Ottomans subsidized the institution of akhis which had the same structure of guilds of Christians, but they were on arts and philosophy. Interestingly, these akhis were very tight organizations. They had a very strict code of ethics. It was required that one has to pass many tests and prove many achievements to be part of this organization. This resulted in a government-like social structure that was hard to dismantle. Instead of collecting skills around kings and lords, the Ottomans were collecting the skills around this new social structure. They developed waqfs (tr:vakif) to make sure that these centers would be economically stable. One curtail addition of Ottomans to this organization is enabling the Christians to be involved in these activities, as long as they paid for their taxes. The functions that enabled mixture of cultures soon were recognized as very effective. Ottomans, instead of only rich Christians being educated, extended this function to very clever and able children from all over their conquered Christian lands. These centers looked like modern boarding schools. The Ottoman state was channeling the students. The Pope and Christian states named this social organization (Devshirmeh) as a form of Christian slavery. Whether it was a form of slavery or not is questionable, but it gave the Ottomans a chance to develop a system which these students become the basic building blocks of their empire. They were modelling a system which helped the migration of brains from both cultures.

[edit] Reforms of Mehmet II

[edit] Fall

During the initial centuries the empire was not build on religion, and until the 17th century, which their education gave a way to religious teachings, they were beyond the parts of scholastic Islamic culture.