Daily Life In The Ottoman Empire (12 page)

Beginning with the reign of Murad I (1362–1389), Ottoman
recruiters travelled the newly conquered regions of the Balkans and selected a
certain percentage of boys from Christian villages. The Muslim jurists
justified the practice by evoking the right of every Muslim conqueror to
one-fifth of all movable booty after the end of a military campaign. In this
context, “the Christian boys constituted the sultan’s fifth.” Even when the
territorial expansion of the empire slowed down, the idea of recruiting young Christian
boys as soldiers and administrators did not stop. As late as the 16th century,
the sultan issued a royal decree ordering his local officials to summon all
Christian boys between the ages of 8 and 20 in their rural districts. The
government officials selected and registered the most suitable young boys. The
recruiters sought unspoiled and unsophisticated non-Muslim lads who did not
know any Turkish but possessed strong health, attractive physique, and
formidable moral character. The new recruits were sent in groups of a hundred
to a hundred and fifty to Istanbul, where they were received by the commander
of the janissary corps. The number of boys recruited through this system in the
16th century has been estimated at from one to three thousand a year.

As the future members of the ruling elite, the recruits had
to learn Turkish and acquire the customs and etiquette of an Ottoman official.
The best and most talented were retained as pages within the palace system,
where they received further education and training in royal palaces in Istanbul
and Edirne under the strict supervision of eunuchs and tutors.

Once the pages had completed their education, they were
either appointed to positions within the palace or served as the
kapikullari
(the slaves of the sultan) military units. Palace pages were trained by the
eunuchs, who organized their daily activities and responsibilities. First, the
eunuchs taught them silence, followed by proper behavior and posturing. While
in the presence of the sultan, they were to have their heads bowed and gaze
downward, holding their hands together before them. They then learned how to
read and write. They also learned how to speak Turkish and pray in Arabic. Once
they had completed this elementary stage, tutors began to teach them Persian
and Arabic and encouraged them to read a variety of works in both languages so
that they could speak the elegant Turkish of the Ottoman ruling elite, which
was very different from the “vulgar” language spoken by the peasant farmers in
the villages and small towns of Anatolia. At this stage, they also learned to
ride, wrestle, shoot with a bow, throw the mace, toss the pike, and handle a
variety of other weapons. Thus, the young boys grew up in the isolation of the
palace and with little contact with the outside world. As servants who owed
their status and special privileges to the sultan, they remained single until
they had reached the age of 30. The system demanded that they devote their
loyalty and service to the sultan rather than to a wife and children, who could
otherwise occupy their time and energy.

Until the reign of Mehmed II in the middle of the 15th
century, the Ottomans, like many previous Muslim dynasties, recruited and
trained slaves primarily as soldiers. The majority of non-military functions
were reserved for government officials who were recruited from the Muslim
Turkish elite. The members of this elite class were, for the most part,
educated in traditional bureaucratic and religious institutions where the
knowledge of Islamic sciences, as well as Arabic grammar and Persian literature
and poetry, was mandatory. Many who served as civil administrators within the
Ottoman government were recruited from the ranks of the ulema, or the scholars
and practitioners of Islamic law. Beginning in the reign of Mehmed II, however,
the sultan began to appoint slaves to the top administrative positions of the
empire.

JANISSARIES

As the sultan’s elite infantry force, the janissary corps
constituted one of the most important pillars of the Ottoman military. The
members of the corps were acquired as children from among the non-Muslim
populations of the empire through the
devşirme
system. They were
kept isolated and received special training in the palace. Their relative
isolation from the rest of the population did not, however, prevent some of the
janissary battalions from engaging in duties that brought them into contact
with the urban populace of Istanbul. They took part in providing security, law
and order, or similar municipal tasks. Each janissary battalion was based in
one of Istanbul’s numerous districts, where it operated out of
kolluk,
which
functioned as a modern-day police station.

During the 17th century, the effectiveness of the
janissaries began to decline as their discipline and training deteriorated.
Worse, their commanders became increasingly involved in court intrigues.
Instead of sowing fear in the heart of the enemy, the janissaries emerged as
the source of terror and instability for Ottoman sultans. Their physical
proximity to the sultan, and his dependence on them for his safety and
security, allowed the janissaries to play the role of kingmakers.

In the 18th century, the
devşirme
system
finally came to an end as the janissary corps suffered a total “breakdown in
discipline and vigour and began to lose its original status.” Meanwhile, as
inflation set in and the cost of military campaigns increased, the central
government faltered in its financial obligations and failed to pay the
janissaries their salaries. In response to the sharp decline in their income,
the janissaries became involved in activities that increased their real wages.
Some opened coffeehouses, while others worked as “butchers, bakers, boatmen,
and porters.” Some organized protection rackets for shopkeepers and artisans in
return for regular payments. As their social and economic interests and
activities became intertwined with those of the urban classes, the janissaries
ignored the traditional rules, which prohibited them from marrying and living
outside their barracks. They also sent their sons to join the janissary corps.
In place of recruiting young Christian boys as slave soldiers, the sons of the
retiring janissaries began to join the infantry force, thus establishing
themselves as the hereditary successors to their fathers. Despite these
fundamental changes in their role and function, the janissaries retained a
prominent role in the palace and among the ruling elite. Here they exerted a
conservative influence, which advocated protectionism in trade and opposed any fundamental
reform of the political and military structure of the empire that would replace
the corps with a new military force modeled after modern European armies.

In 1826, Mahmud II finally disbanded the janissary corps,
shelling their barracks in Istanbul and massacring those who had challenged and
threatened his authority. Replacing the janissaries, who had dominated the
Ottoman army and political life for centuries, was not easy. It took several
decades and numerous humiliating defeats at the hands of European armies before
a new and well-trained military force emerged.

A
janissary (Ottoman elite guard). Jacopo Ligozzi (c. 1547–1632).

PROVINCIAL ADMINISTRATION

Along with the central government, the provincial
administration also played an important role in preserving the unity and
territorial integrity of the empire. To maintain an efficient provincial
administration and a strong military force, the Ottomans had to create a
financial organization that would collect taxes effectively and generate
revenue. Under Ottoman rule, land constituted the most important source of
wealth and income for the government. As in other Islamic states, there were
several distinct categories of land ownership. By far the largest category was
mini
(crown land), or land owned and controlled by the state. Theoretically, all
lands used for agricultural production in the empire belonged to the sultan.
The central government also recognized
vakif
(Arabic:
vaqf)
, or
land controlled and supervised as a religious endowment with its revenue
providing support for charitable objectives. Another category of land ownership
was
mülk,
or privately owned land. The
vakif
and
mülk
could
be transferred to crown lands by the order of the sultan. Ottoman sultans were
always desperate to increase their revenue base by confiscating
vakif
and
mülk
lands, and converting them to
mini.
Under the Ottoman land
tenure system, the peasants enjoyed the hereditary right to cultivate the land
but could not sell it or transfer the title without permission from the central
government. The hereditary right to cultivate the land passed from father to
son.

SIPAHIS AND TIMARS

Akçe,
a silver coinage, constituted the chief unit
of account in the Ottoman state. The Ottoman Empire frequently suffered from a
scarcity of this silver coinage, which posed a fundamental challenge to the
central government. How could the Ottoman state collect taxes from peasant
farmers who could not pay their taxes in cash? And how could the sultan pay his
officials and troops their salaries? In response to these challenges, the
empire was divided into numerous fiefs. A military fief with an annual value of
twenty to one hundred thousand
akçes
was called
kiliç zeamat
(sword
fief), or
zeamat
for short. A military fief less than that was called a
timar
(labor). To each
timar,
or military fief, the sultan assigned a
sipahi,
or a cavalryman. The
sipahi
did not exercise the right of ownership
over the
timar
he held, but was responsible for collecting taxes and
maintaining security in the area under his control, making sure that the
cultivation of land would not be disrupted. He provided troops to the army
during the time of campaigns, thereby contributing to the central government’s
cavalry force. Unlike the janissary, who used firearms, the
sipahi
and
the men he recruited and organized were armed with medieval weaponry. The
revenue generated by his
timar
paid for his military services.

At the time of the conquest of each new territory, the
Ottoman government sent agents to the newly acquired territory to identify and
quantify taxable sources of income, such as crops, and assess the amount of tax
that a particular district was to pay. These calculations were then entered
into government registries. Every twenty to thirty years, these tax assessments
were revisited and, if necessary, revised. Instead of paying the salaries of
military personnel from the sultan’s treasury, the troops were thus allowed to
directly collect the revenue from agricultural production in lieu of their
salary. The
sipahi,
who lived in a village among peasant farmers,
collected the taxes in kind and it was his duty to convert it to cash.

Timar
holders were grouped together under
sancaks,
or military-administrative units, which were run by a military governor (
sancak
bey
). The military governor was called a
sancak bey
because he had
received a
sancak,
or a standard/banner, from the sultan as a sign and
symbol of his power and authority. The officers positioned between the
sancak
bey
and the ordinary
sipahi
were the
alay beys,
who were
subordinate to the
sancak bey,
and the
subaşi,
who acted as
the district commander responsible for apprehending offenders and keeping the
peace.

As the Ottoman Empire grew in size and the number of
sancak
beys
increased, the central government created a new position, the
beylerbey,
or
bey
of the
beys,
responsible for the
sancak beys
in
his province. Each
beylerbey
ruled from a provincial capital, which had
its own janissary garrison, religious judge (
kadi)
, and administrators
in charge of assessing taxes. This system did not prevail in all provinces and
territories controlled by the sultan, however. In many Kurdish- and
Arab-populated regions, tribal chiefs were appointed as hereditary
sancak
beys.
They were responsible for collecting taxes—much of which they
retained—and sending troops to Istanbul at time of war with foreign powers.
There were also vassal Christian states, such as Wallachia and Moldavia, which
were ruled by their princes, and Muslim principalities, such as the Crimea,
that were administered by their khans. The Ottomans required an annual tribute
from the vassal prince as a token of his submission. At times, they also
demanded that a son of the vassal prince reside as a hostage at the Ottoman
court, and his father pay homage to the sultan by visiting the capital once a
year and swearing allegiance to the sultan. The vassal prince was also expected
to provide military support for the sultan’s campaigns against a foreign enemy,
and he was to treat the allies and foes of the Ottoman state as his own.