1. The Ottoman Empire
Dr Aysu Dincer

2. Why should we study the Ottoman Empire?
At its height, Ottoman territories spread over three continents
It was the inheritor and synthesizer of Roman, Mongol, Arab, Persian and Byzantine traditions
An opportunity to think about practices of governance, culture, and economics that were in transformation from the late medieval period into the early modern period (and beyond).
An imperial system full of adaptation, innovation, tension and contestation.

3. Ottoman Empire

4. Expansion: Ottomans start growing especially after Osman’s death
Expansion: Ottomans start growing especially after Osman’s death. His son, Orhan extended the Ottoman rule over significant territories. Bursa (1326) became their first capital.

5. His successor, Murad I, and the first person to be called a Sultan, stretched the Ottoman rule into the Balkans, capturing Adrianople/Edirne by 1369 and moving the capital there. There was a brief ‘respite’ to Ottoman expansion, caused in part by the invasion of the Timurids (with Timur, or Tamerlane as their leader) into Anatolia. They defeated the Ottomans at the Battle of Ankara in 1402, captured Sultan Beyazid I who died in captivity. After a short interregnum, the Ottomans were able to consolidate their presence in the Balkans and Anatolia

6. Territorial Expansion

7. The Fall of Constantinople 1453
Mehmed II (‘The Conqueror’) adopted the title: 'Kaysar (Caesar) Basileus Padishah-i Konstantiniyye and Rum'

8. Sultan Suleyman the Lawgiver (Kanuni) or Magnificent (r. 1521-1566)
conquered Hungary, including Budapest
besieged Vienna(without success) in 1529
pushed the Ottoman borders to the Red Sea, and the Indian Ocean.
consolidating all past sultanic judgements into a law code, called the Kanunname

9. The Royal Household Empire never divided among sons
Practice polygyny (multiple wives/concubines)
Fratricide

10. The Ottoman System of Governance
‘reaya’ or ‘askeri’
Ulema: religious elite
A multi-ethnic and multi-faith state
Various languages spoken
Non-Muslims have dhimmi status, can practice their own religion, as long as they all pay the jizya/cizye tax
Also toleratant towards other branches of Islam, such as mystical Islam (Sufism)
Law: Sharia courts which implemented Islamic law; also recourse to the kanun, Sultanic law

11. Trade and the Economy
An emphasis on the welfare of the subjects of the empire
Jewish, Armenian and Greek Orthodox subjects active as merchants in European towns
'Capitulations' (ahdname): Ottomans granting mutually beneficial trading privileges to French, Dutch and English merchants 

12. Military Organisation
Timar system
Janissaries: devshirme system
Combination of light cavalry, firearms, siege warfare and naval warfare

13. 17th-century Changes
Long and bloody wars against the Habsburgs and Safavids
Janissary numbers increase from 16,000 to 40,000
Both factors leading to a strain on the treasury
Fiscal changes: timar system replaced by tax farming (held by private individuals)
Rise of a cash economy (but also increasing inflation)
Uprisings (firearms commonly held and used).

14. The ‘Decline’ Paradigm
Decentralised state (rise of tax-farmers + provincial elites + alternative centres of power)= decline?
‘....the decline model is not so much wrong as entirely insufficient; it conceals behind its visage simply too much that was creative, enduring, and resolute.’ (Daniel Goffman, The Ottoman Empire and Early Modern Europe (2002), p.127)