The defeat of the Anatolian Selcuk Turks at the battle of Kosedag in 1243 subjected them to the increasingly intrusive suzerainty of the Mongol Ilhanlis, ruling from Iran. And with the eclipse of the Selcuks as an independent regional power, in conjunction with the new waves of Turkmen migration, westwards from the Ilhanli base to the more loosely-controlled Selcuk/Byzantine frontier region, numerous petty independent beyliks (principalities) began to form in western Anatolia from the middle of the 13C. For the frontier area, adjoining as it did the rich plains of the Byzantine Empire, became a haven for those fleeing Mongol authority, indeed any who sought a new future. Thus the population increased and assembled around the many beys who were leading raids into Byzantine land under the potent banner of gaza (holy war) and establishing themselves and their followers in the territories they managed to acquire there. By the end of the 13C, such raids had become so common that they seemed almost to form constituent parts of one single wave of invasion. And one particular beylik, situated furthest to the north and closest to the coveted Christian lands, besieged Nicaea (Iznik) and defeated a substantial Byzantine army of some 2000 mercenaries in 1301 at the battle of Baphaeon (Koyunhisar, near Yalova)—a victory that spread the reputation of its leader, Osman Gazi (1299?-1326), far and wide. Thenceforth, gazis (fighters of holy war) from all over Anatolia hitched themselves to Osman's rising star, following the usual custom of adopting the name of their leader and thus calling themselves Osmanlis. More and more Turks migrated west and north to Osman Gazi's beylik, tempted by the prospect of much booty and fresh lands in which to settle. It was thus that the Osmanli— commonly known as Ottoman—principality established its paramount in western Anatolia from the beginning of the 14C, and it was from these small beginnings that the Ottoman dynasty—or dynasty of Osman. in accordance with the Arabo-Iranian (as opposed to Turkish) tradition that states and dynasties usually took the name of their founder—was to grow into a vast and durable empire, spreading over three continents by the 16C.
The Ottoman beylik, in common with all the other frontier prin cipalities, based its organization on and sought its legitimation in the ideal of gaza—continuous expansion through the religious duty of holy war, with the ultimate aim of achieving world empire in the name of Islam. This ideal gradually evolved from the popular folk tradition of heroic exploits to the more learned orthodox doctrine of the Seriat (canonical law). Thus gaza was intended not to devastate but to subjugate the non-Muslim world, and the warlike raids of the frontier gazis were soon succeeded by the establishment in con quered lands of the new Muslim state's protective administration, tolerating and even guaranteeing the lives; property and religious freedom of their non-Muslim subjects in return for loyalty. In this, as in so many aspects of Ottoman civilization and particularly statecraft, the clear precedent set by their Selcuk predecessors was adopted and developed.
It was under Osman Gazi's son and successor, Orhan Bey (1326-62), that an Ottoman foothold in Europe was acquired, a strategic marriage alliance with the Cantacuzenus family—one of the claimants to the Byzantine throne—providing the opportunity to intervene in internal Byzantine affairs. This was an opportunity he exploited to establish a military presence in Gallipoli (Gelibolu) and other Thracian fortresses, advancing to capture Adrianople (Edirne) in 1361.
The pattern of Ottoman expansion set in Anatolia continued in the Balkans (Rumelia; from Rumeli or Rum Ili). The Ottomans accepted into their service submissive local nobility and military commanders, along with their troops, instead of killing them. Those local populations who submitted voluntarily to the gazis were left unmolested, while Turkish settlers were brought in from Anatolia to populate new villages. These frontier villages were sited along the main avenues of the Ottoman advance and were usually centered around zaviyes founded by ahis, members of a religious fraternity-cum-trade guild who played an important role in frontier society by organizing the newly-settled communities. Thus conquest was always followed by rapid Turkish colonization, providing a solid foundation for the next phase of expansion.
But the ease with which the Ottomans colonized Rumeli is partly explained also by the state principle of protecting the peasantry against local administrative exploitation, replacing the heavy taxes and oppressive privileges of the old feudal overlords and the Church with the far lighter tax and less burdensome presence of the new centralized administration. This deliberate policy of conciliation, combined with the Ottomans' extreme religious tolerance, meant that, in general, while the nobility and higher religious dignitaries tended to seek support from Latin Christendom, the Orthodox peasantry and lower ranks of the Church sided wholeheartedly with the Muslim Ottomans— to the extent of assisting them against their Christian overlords, thus exacerbating yet further the deep and lasting hostility of Christian rulers and Church. The ramifications could be discerned even as far away as England, where a scholar like Henry Stubbe, Under-Library-Keeper at the Bodleian, Oxford, in the mid-17C, was to assert that 'it is indeed more the interest of the princes and nobles than of the people which at present keeps all Europe from submitting to the Turks'. Interestingly enough, the book could not be published, but it circulated (possibly widely) in manuscript form.
At all times, the Ottomans tried to adhere to a policy whereby an advance on one front was paralleled by a subsequent advance on the other front, so the conquest of Rumeli did not distract them from expansion in Anatolia. By the end of the 14C, then, the Ottoman domain extended from the Danube to the Firat.
The sudden and massive Ottoman defeat in 1402 by the powerful Turkish ruler of Central Asia and Iran, Emir Timur (Tamerlane, from Timur Leng), and the imposition of Timurid suzerainty did not, however, prevent the Ottomans from re-establishing their position in Rumeli by 1415. From this time on expansion was rapid. Of particular significance was the conquest of Constantinople (Istanbul) in 1453, the last remaining Byzantine stronghold—apart from its offshoot Comneni kingdom in Trabzon (Trebizond), which was shortly to follow suit— surrounded on every side by Ottoman territories. Fatih Mehmed II (Mehmed the Conqueror; 1451-81) now laid claim, as the legitimate successor of the Eastern Roman Empire, to all its former territories, and from his capital at Istanbul undertook an administrative policy and a series of campaigns that established a centralized empire over virtually the whole of Anatolia and Rumeli, almost as far as Belgrade. Indeed, Fatih Mehmed may be taken as the true founder of the Ottoman Empire, for these lands, centering on Istanbul, were to constitute the Ottoman core territory fox the next four centuries, and it was he who first adopted the title of 'Sovereign of the Two Lands and of the Two Seas' (Anatolia and Rumeli, and the Mediterranean and Black Seas respectively).
The reign of Selim I (1512-20) saw the defeat of the rival Turkish Mameluke state, thus adding Egypt, Syria and the Hejaz to the Ottoman domains. This was of major significance in that the Ottomans thus replaced the Mamelukes as the protectors of the Caliphate and, by extension, of the Islamic world, the position of Islamic law necessarily took on a new importance in the Empire, and the world's richest centers of transit trade fell into the Ottoman orbit.
Kanuni Suleyman I (the Law-Giver, also known as the Magnificent (1520-66), utilizing the growing capability of the Ottoman fleets, captured Rhodes—one of the most strategic strongholds of the eastern Mediterranean—from the Knights of St. John, and established control over much of the North African littoral. And 16C Ottoman naval supremacy in the Mediterranean dated from the battle of Prevesa in 1538, at which the Ottomans routed a powerful crusading fleet. On land, Kanuni Suleyman extended the Ottomans' European frontier to incorporate Hungary and Transylvania. Certainly, up to the end of the 16C, the Ottoman Empire was involved directly or indirectly with virtually all aspects of international politics, frequently sought by France as an ally against the Holy Roman Empire of her Habsburg rivals. Ottoman policy, meanwhile, was simply to maintain Christian disunity, weaken the dominant Habsburg power and prevent a joint Christian crusade against itself. It could, for example, be argued that Ottoman pressure on the Habsburgs was an important factor in the extension of Protestantism in Europe.
In the other direction, Kanuni Suleyman subdued and incorporated Azerbaycan, western Iran, Iraq and the Emirate of Basra, thus acquiring control over the Persian Gulf and the Red Sea and the routes to India. But 1570/71 saw the last of the great Ottoman conquests, with the capture of Cyprus, and the first of the great Ottoman defeats, at the battle of Lepanto (Inebahti).
The later 16C was the zenith of Ottoman territorial expansion, extending as it did from central Europe to the Indian Ocean. But the Ottomans' motive force, gaza, seemed by now to have expired, leav ing a spiritual vacuum. For the Empire had long been trapped in what might be called the paradox of hegemony, by which continuous geographical expansion necessitated still further conquests to protect new frontiers and incorporate new neighbors as buffer states, vassals and, in due course, Ottoman provinces, thus creating yet more new frontiers; meanwhile the core territories of the state had to bear the increasingly massive costs and were consequently weakened and impoverished—with disaffection expressed by numerous local Anat olian uprisings. Moreover, the widespread devastation and utter destruction inflicted upon the Islamic world by the Mongols in the 13C had completed the already perceptible decline in Islamic dynamism and vigor. The rise of the Ottomans to the status of a world power had been fuelled by the continuing momentum of, as it were, the dead weight of Islamic civilization, while Islamic intellectual vivacity and spirit of enquiry had passed to western Europe, where it was to provide the foundation for the rationalism of the Renaissance and Reformation. Yet rather than the two opposite and opposing cultures stimulating one another, the Ottoman Empire, with its indulgent religious tolerance and overweening sense of superiority that prevented it from observing (let alone learning from) the growing intellectual stature of its adversaries in western Europe, was thus possessed of a mentality wholly unconducive to the development of a new and dynamic civilization.
However, the organization and running of the Ottoman Empire, which was to endure for nearly 700 years, offered no grounds for supposing any such deficiency. Legitimacy, in terms of legal succession to Selcuk sovereignty, was early provided for the Ottoman dynasty by the tradition that Osman Gazi was presented by the Selcuk Sultan with the title of Bey and the traditional symbols of authority—a robe of honor, a horse, a flag and a drum—after his capture of an important Byzantine fortress, and that it was only after the death without issue of the last of the Selcuk sultans that Osman Gazi announced his independence by having the hutbe (Friday prayer) read in his own name. Osman is also credited with the support of an ahi Seyh (sheikh) who supposedly provided spiritual legitimacy for the dynasty by giving Osman both a gazi's sword and his own daughter in marriage. And the growing beylik took, as the fundamental inspiration for its state organization, the model of the Selcuk and Ilhanli states. For example, the Ottoman state concept, always based on the principle of gaza, also incorporated the ancient Turkish principle of justice and protection of the populace from abuse and exploitation and of the distribution of largesse through acts of public welfare—so prominent under their Selcuk predecessors.
The succession of the royal family, like that of the Selcuks, tended to depend on the outcome of fratricidal struggle. But whereas the Selcuk princes were usually fairly independent regional governors based in provincial capitals, the Ottoman princes were kept under close central control; and later on, as ancient Turkish tradition faded, all but the eldest were confined to the Palace and thus easily disposed of when the eldest inherited the throne. When Fatih Mehmed codified his body of law (kanunname), he merely legalized long-existing practice by permitting, along with Seriat consent, the killing of all his brothers by the son who succeeded to the throne. Thus, the element of fratricidal strife and internal disorder on the death of the Sultan was reduced, but at a cost, as we have discussed earlier. In any case, the risk of Palace intrigue and struggle was never entirely eliminated, for various powerful factions, such as Palace cliques—usually centering on the Valide Sultan (mother of the reigning Sultan), the Grand Vizier and the Harem Agasi (chief black eunuch of the Palace)—the Ulema (doctors of theology) or the Yeniceris (Janissaries), wielded much influence over the selection of the successor and often took opposing sides, supporting different candidates whom they could manipulate to their own respective advantage.
The Sultan presided over the Divan-i Humayun (Imperial Council), composed of high executive, military and administrative officials and viziers (ministers), which dealt with all governmental matters— political, judicial and financial—and was supported by a vast Palace bureaucracy. But from the reign of Fatih Mehmed, the Sultans tended to withdraw from direct participation, leaving the Grand Vizier to act as absolute deputy, but often following the proceedings from behind a small grille cut into the wall of the Council Chamber and intervening as they wished. Gradually, too, the Grand Vizier came to deputize for the Sultan as Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces on campaign. But his immense power and authority was generally kept from rivaling that of the Sultan himself by various bureaucratic checks and balances.
The Palace was held to be the center of the Ottoman Empire and the source of all power and favor. Government was conducted here; indeed, the term Dergah-i Ali or Kapi (Sublime Porte) for the Ottoman Government derives from the 'Gate' of the Palace (Dersaadet or 'Gate of Felicity') where the Sultan received his subjects, dispensed justice and observed ceremonies. Traditionally, a new Sultan was not accepted by his subjects as legitimate until he had secured the capital which contained the seat of government. The organization of the Palace was divided into an Inner (Enderun) and Outer (Birun) Court, connected by the Gate of Felicity where the Sultan conducted state business. The Inner Court was where the Sultan spent his private life and the Outer contained all the services and organizations that regulated his relations with the outside world.
Thus the Palace was more than a royal residence; it was the center of government. And the foundation of the Ottoman central government organization was the kul system with its practice of devsirme. This was a system by which, in its classical form, levies were made of the sons of Ottoman Christian villagers engaged in agriculture, excluding certain categories such as urban families, those with particular skills vital to the local economy and families with only one son. The bulk of the boys thus levied were brought up to become members of the Yeniceri corps of militia. But the best were creamed off to the Palace where they received the finest education and training for recruitment into the higher ranks of the religious and civil service, or, at the least, as commanders in the cavalry of the Kapikulu (elite household) forces. The aim of this policy was to create a corps of totally loyal servants of the Sultan, with no independent source of power or patronage, and provided with the best education and greatest opportunity for advancement by merit—for all these boys came from obscure village backgrounds where their prospects were minimal. For this reason, many families, especially in the poorer villages, willingly offered their sons, for whom they themselves could never afford such advantages. Indeed, in the course of time an increasing number of Grand Viziers—the highest position in the Empire after the Sultan—came to be of kul origin. Muslim Turks were exempt from this special levy for sound political reasons; they would inevitably retain family and religious links and therefore be less capable of absolute loyalty to the Sultan and likely to abuse their privileged status to further their relatives' position, thus distorting the whole, finely-tuned balance of state and economy—as indeed seems to have occurred in any case, long before the classical kul system was relaxed to include Muslim Turks.
In the provinces, the main administrative unit of the Empire was, from the start, the sancak; and a beylerbeylik or eyalet (province) was comprised of groups of these, headed by a Beylerbeyi (Provincial Governor). But a system of checks and balances limited the local authority of the Beylerbeyi through the existence of two other provincial administrative units answerable to the Palace. These were the units of the Kadi, with his religious, judicial and administrative duties, and of the Hazine Defterdari (Provincial Treasurer), with his fiscal responsibilities to the Palace Treasury.
While a variety of land and taxation administrative systems operated in different parts of the Empire, the backbone of the Anatolian (and Rumeli) organization was the timar system, based chiefly on the Selcuk ikta. In this way the provinces were geared to support the huge and growing armed force required to implement the Ottoman policy of continuous expansion by military conquest, with minimal cash expend iture. The division of the populace into two broad classes, askeri (military, or executive) and reaya (peasantry) meant that only members of the askeri were eligible for timar, and military service was required in return. The timar was not hereditary, although sons of a deceased timar-holder (usually continuing in the askeri tradition) would be assigned new timars according to the size and value of their father's, nor did the timar-holders constitute a 'feudal class'. For under the centralized Ottoman administration it was not the land itself that was allotted as timar, but the authority to collect a fixed amount of state revenue from the resident reaya, and therefore certain rights over the reaya themselves. The reaya had, however, their own rights over the land, chief among which were those of inheritance and of direct recourse to the central authority, even the Sultan, against oppression and exploitation. Moreover, a timar-holding sipahi (soldier) who, for example, failed to perform military service for seven years lost his timar; so clearly the system was designed to prevent, or at least reduce, the accumulation of local centers of power and autonomy. A further, and major, factor in balancing the power of the provincial timar-holders was the huge, centrally-paid standing army of the Yeniceri corps, composed of Palace kuls and under the direct command of the Sultan, to whom they owed absolute loyalty. In short, so long as the major institutions of the highly centralized Ottoman state continued to function in an orderly way, the ruler maintained his power and any feudal tendencies were kept under control.
The distinction between the askeri and reaya classes could also be breached from the other direction. For while it was in the interest of the state to maintain the order and harmony of society by ensuring that each individual remained in his own class, the opportunity for individual upward mobility through merit alone provided the incentive for personal endeavor and loyalty to the Sultan. Undoubtedly, while members of the askeri class were obliged to profess Islam, and it was in the convert's interest to appear zealous in his new faith, motives for conversion and degree of faith were of less significance than was personal merit in obtaining promotion and distinction. Such tolerance and largesse d 'esprit was important in an extensive and heterogeneous state, not only for non-Muslim subjects but also for the reaya. In this way, the constant admittance of new and capable elements into the askeri class assured the vigorous survival of the society and of the Empire itself.
However, it must be said that these institutions, so efficient in the administration of the Empire in its classical period, all showed increasing signs of disorder and disability from the 16C when distortion of their original bases began to exert its influence on the imperial organization—the period from which the Ottoman decline is generally taken as dating. For example, an increasing number of reaya were accepted as sipahis and assigned timars, thus confusing the more-or-less rigid distinction between askeri and reaya, Palace favorites were more and more frequently granted timars for non-military purposes, thus reducing the land and revenues supporting the essential armed forces; the Yeniceri corps began to establish businesses and loyalties other than to the Sultan and could no longer be depended upon to act in his interest alone. The list is endless.
Ottoman law, continuing the Selcuk tradition, was divided into Seriat (canonical) and kanun (Sultanic), of which the latter were codified by Fatih Mehmed in two kanunnames (codes of law) for the first time. Kanun was largely, although not entirely, based on the long-estab lished customary (consuetudinary; orf) law of the community, gener ally acknowledged if not approved by religious authorities. Essential to the establishment and modification of the kanun pertaining to particular regions or social groups were the population and taxation surveys regularly carried out in precise detail. The basic principle of the Kanun-i Osmani (Ottoman kanun) was that the land and the reaya belonged to the Sultan. Thus was the Sultan's absolute ownership of all land and hence absolute sovereignty in the Empire assured. This enabled the timar system to be widely established and allowed the Sultan to exercise some control over private mulk and vakif estates. Indeed, this principle was the cornerstone of the centralized imperial organization—although, as we have seen, the Turkish tradition of protecting the peasantry from administrative oppression and the periodic distribution of state largesse did help to offset provincial exploitation of the reaya. The law—both kanun and Seriat—was administered and executed by kadis, appointed by the Sultan, and in kanun great importance was attached to precedent, the kadis exercis ing considerable discretionary powers, so that Ottoman law was in a continuous state of development.
With regard to the international trade of the Ottoman Empire, it would be surprising if an expanding state of the territorial extent it had achieved by the end of the 16C was not intimately bound up in the trading patterns of Europe to the west, the Black Sea lands to the north, the Mediterranean and North African countries to the south and the Middle East as far as India to the east. As the Empire grew, it acquired control of traditional trade routes in all directions, both on land and by sea, as we have seen, and Istanbul and other cities such as the early capitals of Bursa and Edirne, Izmir, Antalya and the Black Sea ports became major centers of a thriving transit trade between Asia and Europe. During the 16C, Kanuni Suleyman implemented a policy of co operation with France against the Habsburgs, and the renewal and further grants of extensive capitulations (special trading privileges such as monopolies) to the French merchants at this time served as a model for similar agreements with England, the Netherlands and others. The political weapon used by Ottoman Sultans of capitulation agreements with western European mercantile states had the effect of turning the Empire into a European dependency, as successive Ottoman governments were obliged to admit the import of manufac tured goods to the detriment of indigenous guilds and industries and gave away the profits from exports. In addition, the 16C price revolution in Europe arising out of the New World silver extended to the Ottoman Empire, flooding it with cheap silver. Internally, the frequent debasing of coinage, the drop in crop production, the growing pressure of population and the often excessive exploitation of the provincial populace by state officials were also indicative of a general economic malaise. Yet these are only some of a combination of factors, both internal and external, institutional and incidental, generally put forward as likely contributors to the crisis besetting Ottoman society from the 16C.
The Ottomans were active in building kulliye's (urban centers supported by vakifs)—deriving from the early zaviyes of the Ahis—in the major cities, in order to provide public services and markets and to boost the growth of the cities. The kulliye was usually a complex of religious and charitable buildings—mosque, medreses, hamam, kervansarays, water installations, roads and bridges—along with their supporting commercial establishments—market, han, mill, dye-house, slaughterhouse or imaret—sited nearby. These kulliyes were a vital part of all Ottoman towns, adding their own distinctive character, but sadly have been razed to the ground in the old Christian provinces. The great commercial and cultural complexes of the Ottoman Empire were created out of the vakif system, every major town having its own Great Mosque (Ulu Cami) and bedesten (commercial center, such as the well-known Kapali Carsi, or Covered Market, of Istanbul). The Ottomans, like the Selcuks before them, founded numerous charitable institutions such as medreses, libraries, hospitals, children's schools, kervansarays and public kitchens. Likewise, they were concerned to ensure the ease and safety of road travel, improving roads, building bridges and endowing charitable and fortified institutions along the routes, including also wells, fountains, places of prayer and small guesthouses.
The urban population was based mainly on the productive classes of merchants and craftsmen, as well as being divided into the two religious groups of Muslim and non-Muslim. Yet Muslim and non-Muslim members of each class enjoyed the same rights and status and were only really distinguished by their residential quarters—every city having a separate district for Muslims, Christians and Jews, each containing its own religious dignitaries and representative officials. Indeed, Fatih Mehmed, on making Istanbul his capital, brought under Ottoman protection the Greek Orthodox and Armenian Patriarchs and the Jewish Chief Rabbi and established them in Istanbul to minister to the needs of their communities.
The basis of economic life in Ottoman cities was the craft guilds, whose members comprised a large proportion of the populace and who were extremely well organized and regulated. During the early Ottoman period these were more loosely and independently estab lished as Ahis, but with growing Ottoman authority and centralization they came under closer governmental control. Nevertheless, the internal arrangements of the guilds continued to be largely autono mous and long resisted official interference, while conforming to fixed rules and regulations, chiefly concerning prices, weights and meas ures, quality of merchandise, fraud and profiteering.
In the Ottoman Empire, as in the Selcuk and other Muslim states, the chief educational institution was the medrese where subjects included, besides the purely religious studies, branches of all the sciences—the calligraphic, oral, intellectual and spiritual, such as, Arabic language and literature, logic, natural sciences and mathematics, ethics and politics. The Ottoman Sultans established numerous medreses in their major cities and especially in Istanbul, and from these were recruited the Ulema (doctors of Islamic theology). And during the Ottoman period it was the Ulema who formed the intellectual class, for Ottoman scholarship was very much confined to the traditional Islamic concept whereby its sole aim was the understanding of Allah's word. Reason, then, served religion, and precedent was the guiding principle in all aspects of scholarship; compilation, annotation and commentary, rather than original thought, were of the essence. For the victory of orthodoxy in the 12C gradually stifled the spirit of inquiry and made authoritative opinion the test in all intellectual disciplines as well as in theology; the elaborate doctrine of taklid, blind and implicit obedience and imitation (in the sense in which the word is used in the 'Imitation of Christ') in matters of faith and ritual, was thus to spread like a canker from theology to all aspects of society. Yet this is not to deny the value of the Islamic scholars, for their religious discourse often touched on important topical matters of state politics or public interest, as in the treatises of Ibn Kemal; and the Ottoman Ulema were renowned in jurisprudence and as encyclopedists of Islamic learning, notable among them Molla Husrev, Zenbilli Alt Cemali Efendi, Seyh Bedreddin and Molla Gurani as jurists, and Molla Fanari, Molla Lutfi, Taskopruluzade and Katip Celebi as encyclopedists. The library was an important institution and from the 14C onwards many works were translated from Arabic—the language of religion and scholarship— into Turkish, including the works of history, politics, astrology, natural history and etiquette for the use of statesmen, as well as more popular works, such as the 15C Yazicizade brothers' poem, 'Muhammediye' (Book of Muhammed), and prose work, "Envar al-Asikm' (The Lights of the Lovers).
The influence of mysticism, as taught particularly by al-Ghazali (died IIII), was widespread in the Ottoman period, dominating scholarship to the extent that the early Ottoman medreses followed the most broad-minded intellectual traditions, on al-Ghazali's princi ple that hostility to logic and mathematics was futile as these incorporated the essential elements of all the sciences. Yet, in his reaction to Neo-Platonism, al-Ghazali maintained that while some sciences, such as logic and mathematics, were innocuous (or neutral) for religious belief, others, such as philosophy which could lead to free-thinking and be used against orthodoxy, should be regulated and even restricted when necessary. We can see that in the 15C, under the patronage of Fatih Mehmed, Ottoman scholarship in mathematics and astronomy was distinguished. Most prominent among Ottoman astronomer/mathematicians were Kadizade Musa Pasa, particularly for his commentaries on Euclid and al-Cagmini, his student, Ali Kuscu, and the latter's students, Molla Lutfi and Mirim Celebi. Historiography was encouraged by Murad III (1421-44, 1446-51) and Fatih Mehmed, the most respected works including Kemalpasazade's Tarih-i Al-i Osman' (History of the House of Osman) and Asikpasazade's Tevarih-i Al-i Osman' (Histories of the House of Osman), while chronicles of note included Mustafa All's "Kunh al-Ahbar' (World History). And deep-rooted attachment to music in Ottoman, as in Selcuk, society combined with the enquiring spirit of Islamic tradition during the early Ottoman period to the extent that it was even used in the care of the physically and mentally ill. As Evliya Celebi records, at the domed hospital of the Beyazid kulliye in Edirne, ten singers and musicians played music three times a week as a 'cure for the sick, a medicine for the afflicted, spiritual nourishment for the mad and a remedy for the melancholy'.
Scholastic theology—the confirmation of Islamic dogma by rational argument—also flourished, with the major theologians, Hocazade of Bursa and Alaeddin of Tus debating the relationship between religion and philosophy—the subject of an earlier famous disputation between al-Ghazali and Ibn Rusd; Hocazade's defense of the Seriat against philosophical enquiry won the day.
Thus, by the end of the 15C, a more rigid interpretation of Islam was beginning to assert itself among the Ottoman Ulema which opposed study of the rational sciences; this prejudice was, for example, responsible for the destruction of Murad Ill's (1574-95) superb observatory in 1580. Perhaps an even more graphic example is the fate of the immense library of Grand Vizier Damad Ali Pasa, whose catalogue alone comprised four volumes. After his death in battle in 1716, the imperial edict requisitioning all his books for the state libraries was modified by the Seyh-ul-islam (head of the Ulema) who issued a canonical judgment disallowing the donation of those books on history, philosophy and astronomy. It became more and more difficult for the Ottomans and for the Islamic world in general, to match the scientific and technical developments of their European rivals, as the Ulema and the medreses took an increasingly firm stand against innovation in the practical and rational sciences. Only in areas of obvious state importance, such as geography and medicine, were translations made, and even here copying rather than learning from new developments was the norm. Geographical end cartographical works of the standard achieved by the Ottoman admirals, Piri Reis and Seydi Ali Reis, in the early 16C were not to be repeated. And probably the last prominent figure in Ottoman medicine, Ahi Celebi—founder of the first Ottoman medical school—was active in the 15th and early 16C.
Ottoman creative literature, however, continued to flourish. Divan (Court) literature in the Ottoman Turkish (Osmanlica) of the court circles, with its high content of Arabic and Farsi loan-words and phrases, was composed by poets well-versed in all three languages of Islam. Divan poetry reached its zenith in the mid 16C with poets such as Baki and Fuzuli, but with also the notable talents of, particularly, Nef'i and Naili in the 17C and of Nedim and Seyh Galib in the 18C. Popular literature—in ordinary Turkish—was chiefly expressed in the form of the secular folk-poetry of the asiks (wandering minstrels), such as Koroglu and Oksuz Dede, and the mystical poetry of the dervishes, such as Kaygusuz Abdal and Pir Sultan Abdal.
Moreover, in stark contrast to the growth of religious fanaticism from the 16C was the traditional and continuing popularity among the general populace of the mystical dervish movements—at times acting as focal points for political revolt in a society where religious and mystical thought has often provided the stimulus for social and, particularly, political action.
Turning now to the artistic expression of the Ottomans, the Anatolian heartland was not only the center of Ottoman develop ment, it is also the major location of Ottoman architecture and artifacts today; for the gradual disintegration and final collapse of the Ottoman rule was immediately followed by the wanton destruc tion of all vestiges of Ottoman civilization, particularly in the Chris tian territories. In other words, the price of local nationalism was civilization. What remains in these territories are the vestiges of language, folkways, music, culinary traditions and other such intang ible inheritances. We find in the early architecture a clear develop ment from the Selcuk period, incorporating eastern and Islamic precepts with local Anatolian and Mediterranean construction techniques—but a development that was before long to diverge into a style and composition very much its own. During the formative period of the 14th and early 15C, the necessary pragmatic reconstruction and use of existing Byzantine buildings by Osman Gazi was transformed into a definite building program by his successor, Orhan Bey. Like his father, Orhan established numerous zaviyes for the Ahis and frontier communities, and military fortresses; but it was he who began the construction of public buildings in Iznik and Bursa and other large towns, following the Anatolian Turkish pattern of establishing mosques, medreses, imarets, zaviyes, turbes, hans and hamams. Under Orhan's successors larger and more ostentatious buildings began to be constructed, but still along more-or-less traditional lines, taking the dome as the essential element of vaulting and employing for some time Selcuk decorative techniques. Perhaps the best example of the highest stage of this development, forerunning the Ottoman style, is the Yesil Cami (Green Mosque) at Iznik with its single-domed square form within a building complex, its large porch and its architecturally integrated minaret. This 'primi tive' Ottoman style evolved during the early 15C to introduce the large central dome surrounded by four small corner domes—the foundation in plan and structure of the classical Ottoman style. This was introduced in the Uc Serefeli Cami in Edirne, together with the rectangular courtyard that was to become, with the porch, an essential feature of the Ottoman mosque.
With the conquest of Constantinople in 1453, Ottoman architecture entered its classical phase with the rationally planned kulliye on a systematic geometrical and symmetrical basis and the half-dome as a major structural element in the Great Mosques. These include, notably, the Fatih Camii, Beyazid Camii, Sehzade Camii and Suleymaniye Camii and their kulliyes, all in Istanbul. The last two— Sehzade and Suleymaniye—were the work of the renowned Otto man architect Sinan, who dominated 16C religious and secular architecture with several hundred constructions. He was particularly interested in the use of space, especially domed space, and in experimenting with large, structurally expressive buildings, his greatest and most spectacular achievement being generally agreed as the Selimiye Camii in Edirne. Two other notable monuments of the classical period, the Yeni Cami and Sultanahmet Camii (Blue Mosque) in Istanbul were the work of Sinan's pupils. Provincial mosque architecture of the period was very much based on the style of Istanbul, the capital setting the pattern in this as in almost all aspects of Ottoman society.
Other architectural constructions worthy of note were the Palaces, of which only the Topkapi Sarayi and a number of kosks (kiosks) remain, the covered wooden bedestens, hans, medreses, turbes, libraries and bridges. Throughout, the great developments in style were founded upon a few basic elements, of which the structural clarity of the domed space was the characteristic and essential feature, by manipulation of which variations in space and external configuration were achieved. Decorative effects of stone- and mar ble-carving became supplementary, although the use of two-colored stone and marble was ingenious, but from the early 18C the influence of French rococo began to extend into Ottoman architec ture, which developed its own 'Turkish baroque' or rococo style and gradually adopted more and more foreign elements, blending them into a kind of 'international eclecticism', best exemplified in the Dolmabahce Sarayi and the Yildiz Sarayi in Istanbul. Such adoptions included the penchant for immense single buildings, such as military barracks, schools, ministries, stations and palaces, quite unlike the building complexes of Ottoman tradition.
The major decorative arts of the Selcuk period underwent consid erable change in emphasis as well as style during the Ottoman era. Apart from the virtual disappearance of stone-carving, the spectacu lar wood-carving for which the Selcuks were noted was replaced by inlay-work. This was most popular during the 16C for the decoration of mimbers, lecterns, windows, doors and drawers, with entire panels of wood being covered with inlaid mother-of-pearl, ivory, bone and jade. Ottoman art also featured painted decoration on wooden ceilings, doors and cornices as well as on furniture and mimbers. Stucco-work was comparatively rare in Ottoman architectural decor ation until the baroque taste of the 18C suddenly rendered it fashionable. But frescoes, particularly of flower and leaf composi tions, were popular from the start and by the 16th and 17C covered all surfaces of buildings. With the changing tastes of the 18C, naturalistic landscapes and scenes of houses became more fashion able, and such murals adorned the private houses of many of the wealthy and the higher officials of state as well as the palaces.
One of the most spectacular developments was in Turkish tile art (but less so in tile mosaic art) which reached its peak during the Ottoman period, and was one of the most important of the architec tural decorative arts. With the removal of the Ottoman capital to Bursa, nearby Iznik and Kutahya replaced Konya as centers of tile and pottery-manufacturing, continuing to flourish (as indeed Kutahya flourishes today) when Istanbul became the capital. Otto man tile decoration concentrated on internal walls rather than domes and minarets—often completely covering them—and also decorated arches, doors, windows and columns. Floral designs almost entirely replaced figural motifs; colors grew richer and more varied—to include shades of blue, turquoise, green, white, black, yellow, gilt and the brilliant bolus (or sealing-wax) red—and techniques of glazing and decoration more skilful up to the end of the 16C. But after this came a distinct decline in the quality of both Iznik and Kutahya tiles, their lively and brilliant blues and reds fading and lighter colors becoming fainter, with smudged and running con tours and poor glazing. The 18C saw the closure of the Iznik workshops and the uphill struggle by Kutahya to justify its position as a worthy replacement. Ceramic-ware of the two centers flourished in parallel with the tile-ware, with similar schools of, for example, the erroneously named Damascus' and 'Rhodian' ware, both manufac tured in Iznik.
An interesting development was the institution called the Ehl-i Hiref (Artists and Craftsmen) attached to the Topkapi Sarayi (then called Yeni Sarayi or New Palace). -Artists were divided according to their particular skills and came under the supervision of the Hazinedar Basi (Chief Treasurer) for their commissioned work, their supply of materials and their salaries, although some of them also worked outside the Palace in their own ateliers and workshops. These artists formed the core of Ottoman craftsmanship, dominated the styles, motifs and designs of the provinces and exerted influence far beyond the confines of the Empire, particularly in western Europe.
The largest and most influential section of the Ehl-i Hiref com prised the painters—including brush-and-ink artists, illuminators of manuscripts, portrait-painters, miniature-painters and wall-painters. Designs created here were used by the manufacturers of Iznik and Kutahya and the rug-weavers of Usak. In effect, the Palace controlled quality, techniques and materials in all fields and, as the principal consumer, could impose its own taste in design and choice of motif. Besides the corps of painters, there were bookbinders and calligraphers, goldsmiths and jewelers, coin smiths, specialists in the cutting and setting of gems and in gold work, metalworkers, textile-workers, furriers, tile makers, wood- and ivory-carvers, cap-and tur ban-makers, carpenters and candlestick-makers, to name but some. Prominent among Ottoman motifs were the hayati (stylized blossom) and rumi (split leaf) themes that characterized virtually all 15C decorative art. More diversity became apparent in the 16C as these motifs developed, for example in the classical saz motif of hayati blossoms combined with large twisting leaves, and new ones were introduced, especially the highly-decorative style of Iran when artists of the defeated Safavid court were brought to Istanbul by Selim I. Gradually, the more naturalistic depiction of flowers evolved, while realistic and documentary painting came to be adopted in manu script illustration. In all fields of art, and among whatever motifs were chosen, the abundance of flowers such as roses, tulips, hyacinths and carnations and garden scenes reflected the deep and widespread love of nature of the Turks.
Ottoman fabrics, like tiles and pottery, were a particularly suitable medium for their rich designs, often decorated with a lavish profu sion of flowers and leaves. Ottoman fabrics such as velvet, brocade, satin and taffeta—named according to their methods of weaving— were much admired and held as most valuable and weaving and embroidery with gold and silver thread was intricate and rich. First Bursa and later Istanbul were the centers of weaving, including silks, cottons and wools, colored with plant-dyes of excellent quality. But the 18C saw a lowering of the standard of textile-manufacture, and the flooding of the markets with cheap foreign fabrics.
Knotted carpets, introduced into Anatolia by the Selcuks, de veloped into a craft of wide international repute under the Ottomans. From the 14C, Italian and Flemish painters began to represent Turkish carpets in their pictures, known from the 15C as 'Holbein' carpets through their strong association with Hans Holbein's paint ings. The rich and varied decorative themes and motifs of Ottoman carpets formed a major field of artistic design and this lively Ana tolian tradition continues today.
Glass manufacture was a major Ottoman industry whose products, by their nature, have not survived well. But a variety of glass vases, decanters, glasses, lamps and other household objects were produced in Istanbul, as well as stained-glass windows—well-attested by the Suleymaniye Camii windows. In the 18C, glass manufacture was monopolized by the Tekfur Sarayi workshops in Istanbul and a very high standard set. Later, other workshops were founded in Istanbul manufacturing excellent glass- and crystal-ware; for exam ple, in 1899 at Pasabahce, where most of the best-known glass-and crystal-ware is still produced. But the craft did suffer acutely from the competition with cheap foreign ware imported without duty in the 19C.
The goldsmiths' and jewelers’ craft was prominent in the Ottoman period but metalwork, especially of silver, brass and tinned copper, perhaps suffered as a result of the overwhelming popularity of the highly developed and exotic ceramic art. Metal objects engraved with calligraphic inscriptions, flower designs and arabesques were produced according to a variety of techniques, prominent among them being that of encrustation with precious gems. Although numerous domestic items such as mirrors, caskets, pen-cases, lamps, candle sticks and censers were produced, it was in military arms and armor that Ottoman metalwork excelled, with finely-executed helmets, swords and the like richly inlaid, gilded and even encrusted with jewels.
The importance of Ottoman miniatures, manuscript illumination and portraiture lies not only in their artistic development, which was considerable, but also in their unique character as a contemporary source of valuable information. The presence at Fatih Mehmed's court of a number of foreign painters, notably the Italian Gentile Bellini, contributed to the Ottoman school of portraiture. Prominent artists included Sinan Bey—who worked for a time in Venice and painted Fatih Mehmed seated, smelling a rose—and his pupil, Ahmed of Bursa (Sibilizade Ahmed). A collection of drawings and miniatures in an album attributed to Fatih Mehmed includes numer ous examples of figural drawings—of people, animals and fantastic creatures—by the famous Mehmed 'Siyah Kalem' ('Black Pen') portrayed with his characteristic striking, even pitiless realism. Fatih's immediate successors tended to patronize more the traditional Islamic school of miniature, attracting numerous Iranian and Egyp tian artists to their court. And by the time of Suleyman, artists from all over the Empire were working in Istanbul—the center of the Islamic world for any who aspired to excellence and fame in whatever field of endeavor. The outcome of such a variety of styles and influences present in the Ehl-i Hiref was a rich eclecticism and vitality, with different schools predominating at different times. Beside the highly-decorative classics in the Iranian style, there emerged campaign chronicles employing topographical sketches of military maneuvers and expeditions by Matrakci Nasuh, portrait studies of all the Ottoman Sultans and other dignitaries such as Admiral Barbaros Hayreddin Pasa (Barbarossa) by, for example, Haydar Reis (Nigari) and the characteristically Ottoman annals of the Sultans—the kind of history in which Ottoman authors excelled—with illustrations by Nakkas Osman and others of major events, celebrations, guild processions and hunting parties. By the late 16C, the zenith in Ottoman miniature-painting, realism was firmly established, in con trast to the romanticism of contemporary Iranian schools. Another, quite different, development was that of manuscripts illustrating Islamic history and especially the life of the Prophet; while new subject-matter introduced in the 17C included illustrations from everyday life and books of fortune-telling. And Ottoman miniature-painting flourished anew in the 18C, with artists such as Levni of Edirne, during the so-called Tulip Period (Lale Devri, 1718-1830), when familiarity with art in western Europe initiated a new creativity in book illustration, indulging, for example, a taste for frivolous enjoyments and a pre-occupation, in portraiture, with dress.
In the early 19C, traditional Ottoman painting began to modify in style, adopting the three-dimensional technique with its play of light and shade. Artists such as Huseyin Giritli, Osman Nuri and Salih Molla displayed, for all the tentative quality of their work, a striking precision in design and freshness of color. The succeeding genera tion of artists, including Ahmed Ah Pasa (known for his sweet nature as 'Seker—'Sugar'—Ahmed), Huseyin Zekai Pasa, Suleyman Seyyid and Osman Hamdi, achieved a greater maturity in technique and composition, adopted new subject matter such as figures and still life, and painted more varied landscapes than the preceding artists' cultivated parks and gardens—fountains, mosques, old houses, cai ques (kayiks) on the Bosphorus and crumbling walls and ruins. Ali Riza, for example, painted out-of-doors and is most interesting for his apt choice of colors and unpretentious style. In 1873, on the return of Seker Ahmed Pasa from Paris, where he had long worked— influenced by the school of Gustave Courbet—he exhibited his painting at the first ever Ottoman exhibition. In 1914, a group of young artists who had been studying in Paris returned to Istanbul to enrich Ottoman painting with a new vision and a new technique, based on the 'impressionist' use of warm and cool colors for light and shade respectively. And the landscapes of Istanbul and the Bosphorus indeed lent themselves to the new 'impressionistic' style of this generation of artists, among whose names in particular those of Huseyin Avni Lutfu, Nazmi Ziya, (Calli Ibrahim and Namik Ismail are prominent.
The Ottoman period in Anatolian history, then, may be seen in all its various aspects to have encompassed a huge variety of tastes, influences, traditions and developments. And the molding of all these into an original and distinctive whole was arguably no mean achievement, indeed it was one in which the strong centralizing tendency of the Ottoman system—in administrative organization, in economic life, in political endeavor and in artistic expression— played an important role. And as I close with the Ottoman civilization, this note on Anatolian civilizations draws also to a close—a review that looks back over the past without, I hope, sharing the lament of Fatih Mehmet’s unfortunate son, Cem Sultan, who failed to gain the Ottoman throne, that
'How good a time it was we never knew until lost without trace'.
