The Janissaries of the Ottoman/Turkish Empire
The Janissaries was an elite corp. in the standing army of the Ottoman Empire from the late 14th century to 1826. Highly respected for their military prowess in the 15th and 16th centuries, the Janissaries became a powerful force to be reckoned with on the battlefield, and in government administrations. The janissaries were organized into three unequal divisions: the cemaat, bölükhalki, and segban. The Janissary corps was originally staffed by Christian youths from the Balkan provinces who were converted to Islam on being drafted into the Ottoman service. Another way the Janissaries found new soldiers was by enslaving their enemies and forcing them into service. The sultans gained a great deal by using slave soldiers because they had no ties to family or land and they were remarkably resilient in accepting the ways of Islam. All soldiers must be converted into Islam and taught the proper code of the elite before service. Religious conversion was mandatory and all soldiers were subject to strict rules, including celibacy. In the late 16th century the celibacy rule and other restrictions were relaxed, and by the early 18th century the original method of recruitment was abandoned.
Whenever the Turks invade foreign lands and capture their people an imperial scribe follows immediately behind them, and whatever boys there are, he takes them all into the janissaries and sends ...
In Black Dog of Fate, Balakian illustrates how his Armenian background impacted him as being in the first generation of his family born and raised in America. In the beginning of his memoir, the young Balakian lacked interest in the “old country”. As a kid living in a heavily populated Jewish community, he was envious of his friends walking down the street with their parents to go to the synagogue. Through this feeling of jealousy, he felt as though his Armenian ancestry was stopping him from being like his peers. Because Peter’s grandmother and parents did not give him any information about his family’s past at that time, he did not get to know the similar history Jews and Armenians once shared. At the time of adolescence Armenia’s past put a strain in Peter’s relationship with his father after he wrote a paper on Turkey. “. . . the Turkish term paper marked a turning point; in its wake, my father became even more alien to me” (Balakian 95).
The Ottoman Empire was one of the longest running empires in history, spanning 624 years. The women of the Ottoman empire were often limited to the household of their husband’s and held back by Ottoman lawmakers and authorities. The point of view of outsiders was varied, but there were both positive and negative views.
When the king opened the gates of the city to your soldiers, treating them as if they had indeed been Gods, we tried to follow his example, but soon those men began to act as if our Palaces where their own to do with as they please. It became clear that they thought that all they had to do was to stretch out their hands and there would be food or drink. They also took an intense liking for women.”
Islam has been a dominant force throughout Turkish history. During the Ottoman Empire, Islam ruled every part of the theocratic state, but after the demise of the empire, Turkey's rulers led the country away from political Islam. The modern Turkish state has a strictly secular government, and Islam has been relegated to the personal sphere. Although Turkey has experienced a rise in fundamentalism in the past twenty years, the separation of church and state has remained relatively intact. Even with this increase of fundamentalist Islam, the wide majority of Muslims in Turkey are moderate and tolerant. They have adapted to modern life and value Islam for its moral and spiritual messages. Islam is a guide for right living and ethical conduct rather than a political system. Turkey constantly struggles to balance Islamic life with a secular government. Although the government wants to maintain a strict separation between religion and politics, it cannot ignore the power and influence that Islam has in the lives of the Turkish people.
Greene, Frederick Davis. The Armenian Crisis and the Rule of the Turk. London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1895. Print.
The Ottoman Empire were Muslims and included Hungary, Syria, Egypt, Bulgaria, and Albania, and they marched on land. The Ottoman Empire is said to have first appeared somewhere around the 1300’s, and can be related to the decline of the Byzantine Empire. They began conquering Christian lands and by the late 1600’s all Christians were afraid of the “terrible Turk”. It is no wonder that many other people were afraid of the Ottoman Empire since they seem to be really rather powerful and they conquered a lot of land. It was in the 1330’s when the Morroccan Abu Abdallah Ibn Battuta passed through Constantinople and became impressed with the Ottomans who seemed to be gaining power rather quickly, he noticed that they had close to 100 forts and
During the 1300-1600 non-Muslims who lived in the Ottoman Empire were treated tolerably. They could own land, business, could follow their own religious beliefs and cultural traditions. This seemed like a pretty good deal however they had to pay higher taxes than Muslims, could not hold a position of office and had no civil rights.
Analysis of The Reply of the Zaporozhian Cossacks to the Sultan of Turkey to Sultan Mehmed IV of the Ottoman Empire
Clow, Kate. "Ottoman Empire." Encyclopedia of Modern Asia. Ed. Karen Christensen and David Levinson. Vol. 4. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 2002. 398-401. World History in Context. Web. 30 Apr. 2014.
The men at the forefront of the Young Turk’s rebellion were Mehmed Talaat, Ismail Enver and Ahmed Djemal. Eventually, they came to have more of a dictatorial sort of rule on their people, with their own visions of what they wanted for the Turkic people. They all wanted to unite their people and expand ...
Hooker, Richard. "The Ottomans: The 17th and 18th Centuries." Washington State University - Pullman, Washington. 1996. Web. 06 Apr. 2011. .
The Ottoman Empire reached the peak of its power in the 1500s. While other empires were experiencing their downfalls, the Ottoman Empire’s power seemed to be increasing. In fact, this empire can be ranked as the strongest power due to its tactical internal organization of power, minorities, and religion, due to its physical expansion which provided more resources, more advancements, and more people to support the empire, and due to its large military strength that provided security, reduced rebellion, and challenged the other powers.
Prior to my research, there were two interesting articles that have struck my attention regarding the states and issues that are being discussed in this essay. The first article is A Survey of the Turkish Empire by Sir William Eton. In the article, Eton discusses his admiration of the glorious army that had once belonged to the Ottoman Empire. He describes the Turkish army as “formidable”, and organized. Eton tune quickly changes by criticizing their faults and ultimately what led to their demise. Eton states that “it is a mob assembled rather than an army levied.” This article had great impact because while researching the topic, I was able to better understand the role of the military in the Ottoman Empire.
Cicek, Kemal. “The Cambridge History of Turkey. Volume 3: The Later Ottoman Empire, 1603-1839.” Journal of the Economic &Social History of the Orient 52, no.1 (2009): 153-158. EBSCO.
Istanbul is both an ancient and modern city that is full of culture dating back to the beginning of time. It’s a city that is unique, in that, it connects both Europe and Asia. Istanbul is the largest city in Turkey and the most crowded one too. There are approximately more than fourteen million people living in Istanbul alone. That is more than its capital city of Ankara. Istanbul is not just a metropolitan, or one of the most crowded cities, and it’s also an ancient and historical city.