Talk:Ottoman Empire/Archive 3

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Archive 10

Ottoman Empire was not a Turkish Empire

Who says? Halil İnalcık an interview with İlber Ortaylı in 1996. İnacık, most important historian about Ottoman Empire. Please read belows:

H. İnalcık, “The Meaning of Legacy: The Ottoman Case”, Imperial Legacy: The Ottoman Imprint on the Balkans and the Middle East (ed. L.C. Brown), Columbia U.P. New York, 1996.
Prf. Salih Özbaran says "Ottoman identity was Rumi (Antolian)" Bir başka Osmanlı kimliği: Rumilik (Turkish).

....Kayı tribe of Oğuz Turks... It's just a myth not truth there's nothing any info about Ottoman family before 15. century. Or please prove it... And may be wrong place but ....History of Turkic civilization template... it's just a Pan-Turkist propaganda with state support. Turkoman's history was not equal Ottoman's story just part of it.--Macukali 17:46, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

So you say Osman Ghazi and his father Ertuğrul Ghazi and his grandfather Suleiman Shah were all came from space. What would you say about the Turkish flag standing next to the Suleiman Shah's tomb in Syria? Osman's line is a noble Turkish warrior clan whose members came from Central Asia for the Seljuk attacks on the Byzantine Empire. Deliogul 20:22, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

Myths, ideological lies and real history

There isn't any historical evidence, insciription, chronic, archeological proff or other things about Osman's family. We're confuse mythology with history. Anyway, this article has no reference and Elementary school level.

There's a lot of myths about Ottoman's origin (All of them 2. centuries or more after Osman):

  * Şükrullah (15. century): Ertugrul Gazi, grandson of Noah (21. generation) and he's root come forum (Oghuz) Gökhan's son Çavuldur
  * Arab historians (15. century) A prince from (Greek) Komnenos family who converted Islam in 12. centurn in Konya 
  * Saadettin (16. century) He says (Oghuz) Gökhan or Gün-Han 
  * Bayati (1481) Kayı tribe and Gün-Han
  * F. Köprülü and Modern historians, Cihan shaha of Black Shepps etc....

Historian Paul Wittek discuss Osman's origin, all of the sil-silnames and other claims in his book (The Rise of the Ottoman Empire, London 1967; for Turkish: Osmanlı İmparatorluğu'nun Doğuşu, Pencere Yayınları,İstanbul 2000 (2. Baskı) Probably Kayı origin necessary for political reasons. Just read it! P.S.: Caber Fort of Syria another myth of our history too. It's folklore not history. (Paul Wittek, p.24) or more info: Ibn Khallikan, 1211-1282 Kitab wafayat al-ayan. Reprint of the ed. published in Paris, 1842-43.Translation of Wafayat al-ayan. --Macukali 09:32, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

This article is deficient on so many levels

This article does not mention anything about Shadow theatre, Karagoz, Nasreddin Hoca, Temel, Turkish Coffee, Mewlana rumi's whirling derwishes, nothing about Ottoman sports such as wrestling, cirit. --Kahraman 16:26, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

Yes it lacks the data about the social life. Deliogul 20:22, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

Tabacco

No one blames widespread tabacco use for the decline of the empire, cigarettes kill people, it says so on the stuff. Instead, wiki users are blaming religious people. yeah I know, it's easier than quitting :-) --Kahraman 16:26, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

Camel Dolma

There's an email floating around about stuffing an elephant with horses, stuffing the horses with sheep, etc. It's passed around as a joke email, so I think it would be a good idea to use a reference when mentioning the 'Camel Dolma' (which is about half-way through this email). I could not find any reference to it on Google, and assurance would be helpful for people who have only seen the joke email. --Nick 09:30, 11 August 2006

(HG) 22 August .. I added the Camel Dolma... I heard about it from my grandma.. so I hope that helps:)

edit-wars

can everybody take a step back please? As far as I can see from the diffs, the basic facts are undisputed, and you are arguing over subtle spin that may be given to the facts; surely a compromise wording may be reached between mature editors. That is, as long as anonymous editors do not keep disrupting the process. Anonymous edit warring is frowned upon; you are very welcome to add content or do cleanup work without logging in, but as soon as you get in a dispute, and decide to pursue the dispute, you should use a single account. For this reason I will help revert anonymous edit-warriors regardless of the merit of their edits: This is a case of beating out a compromise on talk, and not of outnumbering the other party.

BTW, why does History of Turkey need to be a dab page? It seems that History of the Republic of Turkey tries at any cost to avoid mentioning times prior to 1922 (so that anything uncomfortable that may have happened at, say, 1919, does not need to be mentioned). This is highly irregular. Our "History of $COUNTRY" articles usually treat all predecessor states of $COUNTRY. History of Germany treats the Holy Roman Empire, the German Empire and Nazi Germany as well as the Bundesrepublik. Why cannot History of Turkey treat the Ottomans as well as the Republic? Having a separate History of the Republic of Turkey is like having an article History of the Federal Republic of Germany that avoids like the plague mentioning any date preceding 1946. dab (ᛏ) 07:33, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

(HG) Turkey & Ataturk made reforms after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire and created a new nation and a new state with new laws, and a new interpretation of what made a person "Turkish". If you want to add the Ottoman Empire as a predecessor state to the Republic of Turkey, you're welcomed to, but you should also do the same thing to about 30 different countries: Greece's predecessor was also the Ottoman Empire, same with Serbia, Albania, Bosnia-Hercegovina, Yugoslavia, Romania, Bulgaria, Poland, Southern Ukraine, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Libya, Egypt, Tunisia, Algeria, .... you should add Ottoman Empire to all these countries then. Does it make sense?

By this logic the Russian Empire should be the predecessor of Poland, the British Empire should be the predecessor of Zimbabwe and the Roman Empire should be the predecessor of Spain... Come on...

Seems logical to me... before the Russian Empire came along the structure of what is now Poland was different; there was a predecessor to the Russian Empire, but it wasn't Poland. Most of central Africa wasn't split into "countries" until the various exploratory expeditions by European nations; the area that is now Zimbabwe (used to be Gondwanaland under British rule) simply didn't exist as a country beforehand. Thus, the British Empire was the predecessor of Zimbabwe. The Roman Empire is stretching it a bit, but by and large it was indeed a (not 'the') predecessor of Spain. --Firi e n § 14:36, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

History section.. (HG) When the Seljuk state was in the process of collapse, the various beyliks, or territories, of Anatolia came into conflict with one another, with the Ottoman beylik eventually emerging as the supreme power in the region. In 1299, Osman I declared independence for the Ottoman beylik, which had gradually been developed by the now-settled Kayı. The history of the tribe before Osman I extended back through Osman's father Ertuğrul to his grandfather Süleyman Shah, who had died in 1227 by drowning in the river Euphrates while fleeing the Mongol advance.

This statement has a problem. The Ottoman Beylik did not become a supreme power among the Beyliks after the collapse of the Seljuk empire right away. They were founded in 1299, then they slowly took control of Anatolia, by marrying bordering Beyliks' daughters, and getting the other Beyliks' inheritance as the dowry. Or , by going and taking over the other Beyliks by force. The Ottomans also had to be stronger than the rest, because they were bordering the Christians and as you know, Europe liked to send crusaders every once in a while. So Ottomans improved their war techniques and used these over the rest of the Beyliks and unified Anatolia, by force or diplomacy. They also used diplomacy with the Byzantine Empire also..

Some changes in the Millet section

1.Ottoman Empire was not a federation-do not make it seem like one
2.Repaired what he had destroyed during the siege and fall?i guess we are talking about the capital, right...?
3.Constantinoupolis had already an an advanced supply system for her inhabitants (some months ago, many more things about the extended water-supply system became known, thanks to archaelogy).--Hectorian 01:45, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

this is the part you keep deleting

Mehmed II used the conquering army to restore the physical structure of the city. Old buildings were repaired, streets, aqueducts, and bridges were constructed, sanitary facilities were modernized, and a vast supply system was established to provide for the city's inhabitants.

now lets discuss

1., cant see where Ottoman empire was seen as a federation here. 2. none of the byzantine monuments were destroyed in the siege so its impossible to understand what u r talking about. 3. Yes it had a supply system before but also other infrastructure systems were built

so i cant see a reason to delete that part. (Metb82 15:58, 27 April 2006 (UTC))

Well, in fact, this is the part i deleted [1]. The Greeks (or the Greek Orthodox, if u prefer) were not self-governed during the Ottoman rule.

1.Self-governed and autonomous and federal areas and people, did not exist in 15th century Balkans and Anatolia. I am aware that some isolated villages in Greece (Souli,Sfakia,Mani) had a degree of autonomy (thanks to their mountainous and difficult to control landscape), but u cannot say that during the turkish rule the Greeks were free to govern themselves in domestic affairs (cause this is what self-governing means).
2.many of the byzantine monuments were destroyed. first of all the walls and the castles (but this is more or less a natural thing to happen when a city is under siege-so,i will not insist on this). but also, Hagia Sophia was also partially destroyed: the decoration of the church, the icons, the mosaics,crosses etc... Practically everything that made it look like a church, in the attempt to convert it to a mosque. Furthermore the byzantine palace, the government buildings, the university, the library. Of course, more or less a natural thing to happen when a city is conquered is the destruction of houses and other buildings, historical or not.
3.i am not saying that the turks did not built anything in the city! of course they did, for it became their capital after that. but in fact they rebuilt the city. infrastructure systems were built, bridges, streets etc, etc. the world changed and changes. more buildings will rise again, tunels in Bosporus and all. technology and human development are the reasons for this. look, all i want is not to make unhistorical claims like: Greeks were self-governed, the Turks respected the monuments of the city they conquered (they did in some cases, but it was not a common practice among rivals during the Middle Ages), or like: nothing existed in the city before 1453, and Mehmed built all.
I am not reverting at the moment, assuming good faith. --Hectorian 17:08, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

(HG) I wrote that piece.. so let me answer... 1-The Ottoman Empire had an intricate system for managing the subjects. They loved hierarchy. Ottomans are originally asian, so you can even see similar structures as far away as in Japan in their corporate Keiretsus.. You have a large company, managing another company, managing another company etc.. Usually the Japanese are not good at managing a foreign culture directly, they also tend to hire a foreign CEO for a company active in a foreign country. This is exactly how the Ottomans did business. If a region they took control of after a war was not diverse enough, they allowed the local leaders to keep control, as long as they collected the tax on behalf of the Ottoman Empire, and paid it to the central government in Istanbul . So, Bogdan, which is around Romania, was one of these regions. Poland was one of these regions. etc.. The story of Dracula (Count Drakul), is also a result of this story. Why would the Ottoman Empire even deal with such a lame guy in Transylvania... They had enthroned him to manage Romania on behalf of the Ottoman empire, but this guy, started to not pay his taxes. So the Ottomans sent him diplomats, and he killed them, or had them die on stakes etc.. Then the Ottomans replaced him with someone else. Same thing in Poland and in Bogdan.. anyways.. So Ottomans did cede control to local authorities as long as they kept things in order.

Now.. in more diverse areas.. like Greece/Anatolia/Fertile Crescent/Holy Lands... the population was so diverse that, there could not just be 1 rule of law. So.. There was the overarching Ottoman government. and underneath, the law of Sharia. The Ottoman Muslims, paid their taxes according to a special army/land system. So they paid a share of their produce to the hierarchy at times of peace, and paid their dues with their blood at times of war. The non-muslims, were more heavily taxed, because the non-muslims were not allowed to fight side by side with the muslims, as having two religions in the army, would not create a unity based on "Allah", and the concept of "Jihad" would not be understood by all. So the Christians had to give away their kids as devshirmes, and the kids became janissaries. which meant, the christians kids (not all sons of the family, just 1) had to convert to Islam and be raised according to Islamic principles. This way, the Ottoman Army was able to grow, otherwise, you'd just have a few muslims fighting with the army shringking in size proportional to the general population.. the jews, did not want to give away their sons. They chose (by consensus thru the Hahambashi in charge of the Jewish population) to pay more in taxes. So there was almost a 3 tiered system in the Ottoman society. This is about taxes and military service.

Now, let's think about .. social law.. Let's say, a muslim guy robbed a christian household and was caught. Do you think that the muslim guy could get away with it? No he didn't. He was then sent to be tried by the Kadi who practiced Sharia law. The Ottoman government's court of justice controlled the process. If a Christian guy robbed a Christian guy. Then, the trial would take place at the tribunals formed by the Christian leadership. So, the Orthodox Partiarchate if they were Orthodox, or Armenian Patriarchate if they were Armenian, Latin Catholicos if they were Catholic... (Latins were only recognized as a Millet, towards the end of the Ottoman Empire around 1800s.). So the religious leaders had control over their law, had control over their religion, teachings, language, law, and traditions.

Ofcourse, when the sub-nations gained their independence, history was re-written in Europe, and Turks were shown to be oppressive nasty people who tortured Greeks, Serbs for centuries.. Yea.. well, that's why after 600 years of Ottoman rule nobody speaks Turkish, nobody is Muslim, and Greeks still claim to be the inventors of Gyro Kebab, Baklava and many other dishes... While, after about the same length of rule of the Roman or Byzantine empire, almost everybody somewhat had learned Latin or Greek and had converted to Christianity... right? So the Ottoman Oppression was actually written into European books, by the priests, in order to gain control over the society. They said "If there was no Church, we would not have been able to secretly preserve our identity for 600 years". But nobody ever asks, who allowed the churches to exist... the answer is simple, the Ottoman government and tolerance.

Ok I am tired. I think I wrote enough.

HALİL İNALCIK

Everyone please reading Halil İnalcık's books ... This article is sick ... —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Sailormercury (talk • contribs) 20:00, 28 April 2006.

That's a valid point, but please clarify: exactly what is "sick" about the article? —Saposcat 06:41, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

Pardon me if I am putting this comment in the wrong spot. The two sentances below look like pure POV to me.

On top of everything, the Ottoman state was among the first in the world to take a step toward representative government. Most of the empire's problems were, in fact, the result of European imperialism.

Wasnt the caliphate more of an absolute monarchy than any sort of representative govt? As far as sentance two, I dont think that should appear unless you cite one or two examples of how European imperialism damaged the empire.

Um, pardon me for saying so, but Ottoman imperialism had a lot more to do with its downfall than anything western.

The Ottoman imperialism can only be a kidergarden play if we compare it with the European type of imperialism. The Ottoman Empire gave many political and social freedoms to the minorities under its control. If you want examples you can look at the historical data about trade relations of the empire with European traders and governments, you will see the king of the imperialism. On the other hand, Turks also know to questionize themselves. The Ottoman Empire didn't take steps for modernization and this was a big mistake but we can't forget about the sick tactics of other world powers in the last times of the Ottoman Empire("last times" because they couldn't do anything to the Turkish Empire when it was at the peak point, the empire was way more powerful from them). With respect, the noble member of the Kayı Tribe, Deliogul 21:45, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

(HG) My response to the above statement...

The Ottoman Imperialism didn't have anything to do with its downfall. The weakness of Ottoman Imperialism, combined with Ottoman Empire's rights of self determination given to the Millets, and the abuse of the religious leaders managing the Millets combined with European Imperialism, and Ottoman religious backwardness killed the Ottoman Empire.

So there were many reasons why the Ottoman Empire died. I think the Ottoman Empire could have become a Federation of Independent Ottoman States just like what happened to the Soviets, but the Europeans waited waited and waited, and did what they could do, economically, politically, sociologically and even went as far as attacking the Ottoman Empire by allying themselves with the sub-nations and killed the Ottoman Empire.

British Empire took Iraq, Palestine, Arabia ... Cyprus, Egypt French Empire took Syria, Lebanon, Hatay... Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia Italy, which was trying to be an Empire, attacked Libya in 1911.

Greece was not an Empire, it just split off from the Ottoman Empire, because the French supported the Greek Diplomats in founding their own country with a Greek religious, national, linguistic, ethnic identity. (So Greece didn't come to being on its own, it got support from the Imperial powers of Europe..)

Serbia split off.. for the same reason.

Armenia got support from Russia and was recognized by Europe. again Imprerial powers.

Ottomans gave Armenians their church and their religious, linguistic freedom. But being their own country was ofcourse better than being part of a diverse Empire. So I can see why Armenians split off. But it didn't happen overnight, the Imperial powers of the West supported them, provided weapons, missionaries from the United States paid regular visits to them, Russians gave them the rifles, the French gave them the political support, that's how it happened.

I hope this is enough?

[No Title]

This is a great article, and I can tell there's been a lot of work put into it. That being the case, I offer an opinion as an end user. The images of the scope of the empire, while quite cool, are also very small. I understand that one may wish it to be small on the main page, but the quite snazzy animated gif that shows the expansion of the empire would be much more useful, if one could read the names of the countries.. instead of merely reading tiny black scribble. :/

Anyhow, great article, some images way too small when you click on them to get more detail.. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 70.81.253.163 (talk • contribs) 23:26, 6 May 2006.

Ottoman Society

This part sounded like a sick joke.

"According to this standard, in the Ottoman Empire non-Muslims were granted cultural and religious freedom, so long as they paid their taxes and showed their loyalty to the sultan."

WTF?!

(HG)This is the reality though... Each Millet was assigned a leader. The leaders were religious, because religion was the way to control the society. In some cases, the Ottoman Sultan actually created a religious leader (see : Armenian Patriarchate in Istanbul which was founded by Mehmet the Conqueror to assign religious leadership to the Ottoman Armenians)to better control the sub-society... They were also given religious, cultural and linguistic freedom. Look at India, people speak English. Look at Africa, people speak Dutch, Portuguese, French, English... Look at South America, people speak Spanish Portuguese.. all Empires in the course of 100-200 years eliminated the cultural, linguistic and religious freedoms and imposed their own on to the locals... In the Ottoman Empire, this was not so, this is why in the end, during the Nationalism movement, the Ottoman Empire broke up into smaller nation-states. Greeks today, being the closest to the Ottoman governmental center, would not be "Greek", "Orthodox" and "Grecophone" had the Ottoman Empire not given them these freedoms. End of Discussion.

Ottoman Sultan did not really create religious leaders. Armenian Patriarchate in Istanbul was not founded by Mehmet the Conqueror; here merely granted permission for the Armenian Archbishopship to become a Patriarchate and to move from Bursa to Istanbul after the conquest. "Eight years after the conquest of Constantinapolis by Fatih Sultan Mehmet, in 1461, he transformed the West Anatolian Archbishopship into the Patriarchship of Istanbul, by a decree." says Mesrob II, the present Armenian Patriarch in Istanbul. And he thinks "Following the recognition of Gennadios as the Greek Archbishop, the same treatment granted to Hovagim as the Archbishop of all Armenians may perhaps be deemed as urged by the wish to establish a balance between Christian inhabitants" [2]. feyz 04:50 11 July 2006 (UTC)

(HG) feyz: are you arguing against my statement or supporting it? Please take a stance and don't post vague statements. From what I read, you're supporting what I wrote, except you're not exactly sure whether the Ottomans "created religious leaders". So are you arguing on the semantics of what I wrote? In any case, that's irrelevant. What's relevant is that the Ottomans provided with the subjects with enough religious freedom and wanted to have balance.

HG: I think your statement about ottoman sultans creating religious leaders is wrong and the example of Fatih founding the Armenian patriarchate is incorrect. He did not found the patriarchate; he gave permission for an already existing Archbishopship to be converted to a patriarchate. And I don't think he really cared about the cultural and religious rights of his subjects; but rather he was trying to revive and populate his new capital - so he had to make it appealling to armenian subjects of the empire. Or maybe he was just trying to keep happy the armenian subjects who were forced to move to istanbul - and yes, Fatih forcefully moved his subjects (not only armenians)from other parts of the empire to Constantinople...

And by the way, I don't think I have to take a 'for' or 'against' stance in all my entries. feyz 12:05 17 July 2006 (UTC)

What is the difference between Turkic and Turkish people?? Does Turkish only refers to the language? Or do you call them Turks? It's so confusing. 9693 05:04, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

Hi. Turkic refers to Turkic peoples in general, while Turkish is limited to the nation of Turkey (it can mean the Turkish ethnicity or Turkish nationality - i.e. citizens of Turkey). Turkish is the language spoken by ethnic Turks in Turkey, while Turkic peoples speak the various Turkic languages. :-) —Khoi khoi 05:12, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

Slavery section

The slavery section seems very POV and designed to prove that their was no slavery in the Ottoman empire. If there was no slavery why have the section?! It also makes a number of dubious assertions such as that sharia forbids slavery. Ashmoo 02:39, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

(HG) The Ottoman Empire did have slavery. Europeans would bring the slaves from Africa and the Genoese and Venetian merchants brought Slaves from Slavic countries (thus the name Slave). In Islam, there is only 1 level of society in front of Allah and there can not be a religious caste system. So all Muslims before God or in society were considered to be equals. Non-muslims were not. So Non-Muslims could be enslaved if they were caught prisoner in a war or so. If these people converted to Islam, since Islam did not allow 2 castes within the society they would automatically regain their freedom and human rights. I hope this helps.

This can help to clarify the slavery section. Since I am not a Ottoman-slavery expert I do not want to do this myself. Reading the section I understand there existed the folowing kinds of slavery: 1 - household slavery, including odalisques. 2 - captives (prisoners of war?) mostly as galley-oarsmen. 3 - rural slavery. 4 - devshirmeh. It would be nice if the article described the extend of all 4 in the Ottoman empire. Also: saying that merchants brought slaves is a bit too friendly for the receiver: slaves were brought because they were bought. 212.123.206.71 13:49, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

(HG) Ok. Devshirmeh is not a kind of slavery, so I would not include that. That's seen as a tax, or a national duty. The other ones.. prisoners of war, devshirmeh etc.. are good. Btw, someone should research wheather non-muslims could own slaves. I think that's an important piece also..

The current section of Slavery is a CLEAR whitewash of slavery in the Ottoman empire, clearly biased and absolutely unaceptable, furthermore - totally uncyclopaediac 85.138.1.71 09:46, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

QUO VADIS?

I have the impression, that this is an article based only on Turkish sources of information. It is showing only the Turkish point of view. Nothing or very little (using a very implicative and disguising wording) is written about the situation of the non-Muslims in the empire. The well-known Ottoman atrocities that shook the civilised world are either not mentioned at all (s. the Bulgarian Horrors in Encyclopaedia Britannica) or if they are mentioned, the tone of the article gets quite implicational (this is the case of the genocide over the Armenians in 1915). Given these HISTORICAL FACTS, the phrase about the tolerant treatment of non-Muslims and the very gentle description of the so-called “blood tax” are simply unacceptable. I wonder why this page is not marked as disputed?

It's pretty clear that the Ottoman article on wikipaedia is higly manipulated, and you are correct, anything that isn't Turkish material was and is being removed, from Slavery to the Brutal Genocides of Greeks, Kurds, Armenians and other Caucasians. The Slavery section is so mindbogglingly biased it even attempts to blame Turk slavery practices on "Caucasians"! Mindboggling. This article is a stain on Wikipedia - Completely biased and partial.

(HG) See, what you're saying is very biased. Because your grandparents have been brainwashing you with anti-Turkish, anti-Ottoman things to reinforce the "Armenian" cause-de-vivre, now you are coming and trying to change history.

The Ottoman Empire spans 600 years. It doesn't span 1 lifetime of a human being. It doesn't span 3 generations. If you approximate a person's life expectancy to be 60 years, it would be 10+ generations. So now, because in 1915, there is a so-called genocide (which is not proven, and is not factual), you are saying that the Ottoman Empire never treated its non-Muslim subjects properly. This is just ridiculous. What kind of weirdos were these Ottomans then, why did they found the very Armenian Patriarchate? Why did they take the Jews from Spain? To mistreat them? I doubt it. Why do you Speak Armenian? Why are you Orthodox Christian? These are questions you should ask yourself when you want to understand more about how the Ottoman Empire treated its non-Muslim subjects ok? You don't look at 1 event that took place in 1915, and say, the Ottomans were just bad. That's 1/600th of the empire's lifetime btw...

It is an undisputed and proven fact that the Ottoman Empire treated it's non-Muslim subjects really well, gave them rights(linguistic, religious, cultural), and respected them, and helped them prosper, and those subjects of the Ottoman Empire, eventually become the nations that they've became today. Now, what happened in 1915, or what happened during the Bulgarian events?(which I never heard of), is a totally different chapter of the book. You put a dot in time, and talk about that event within itself, and close your parenthesis. Don't widen your parenthesis to encompass the whole 600 years.

And stop this bs Armenian propaganda. It is indeed a bit sad that the only thing that identifies Armenians today is the Armenian genocide and nothing else. Oh, sorry, also you can be proud of Cher.

I'm shocked and disgusted... One of Europeans' values is being honest about history, but obviously that's something you can never understand. But if that is your wish, you can keep your head burried in the past and go on with your pathetic "we are totally innocent" ways.

Be honest about history?! Then Europeans must confess their plans to disintegrate Ottoman country. Armenian problem was not a problem of 1915. It began with the defeat of Ottomans against Russia at 1870s. Russia, then began to revolt Armenian folk at east against Ottomans (as well as balkan folk at west), just to rule the eastern/western Turkey. By the year 1915, balkans were already gone, Russia won again. But they couldn't manage taking east. Even Armenians wore russian soldier uniforms to fight against Ottomans. Anyway, Ottomans repulsed the eastern revolts and blood flew. That was a battle. Armies clashes,as well as village people. Bloodflow didn't end: next step "WW1".. and finally Ottomans were destroyed.. But Armenians attacked again but they were again beaten by the new government. That's another story :) --JohnEmerald 10:56, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

Location of the Ottoman Beylik

I noticed that in the Origins section under History, the Ottoman beylik is said to have been located in the far eastern side of the Selcuk State. The Ottoman beylik was in fact in the far WESTERN side of the Selcuk State and that's how it could neighbour the Byzantine Empire.

Late ottoman flag

Well, correct me if I'm wrong but as far as I remember the crescent and the star in the late ottoman flag has different proportions than the present-day turkish flag (especially the crescent). The flag which presented here as the "Late ottoman flag" is the exact same one. ombudsee, 13:08, 06 July 2006 (UTC)

(HG) Yes correct, it also should have 1 extra point on the star... like the Azeri flag of today..

Precisely, the flag I was talking about can be seen in this adress; http://www.crwflags.com/fotw/images/t/tr_osman.gif but I'll not be uploading it to the article due to copyright procedures which certainly I do not have a full understanding about, plus I still couldn't find any solid evidence about when this flag was used and under which circumstances--Ombudsee 15:04, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

early ottoman flag

Ive seen photos of a Green flag with several cresents as a ottoman flag of the 1700's

if this was ideed the flag I think it should be added.

You can see a list of Ottoman Flags

Introduction

At the end of the introductory section, it states:

At the end of the war, the Ottoman government collapsed and the empire was conquered and divided among the victorious powers. Subsequent years saw the declaration of new states from the remnants of the Ottoman Empire. Republic of Turkey, which established in central lands of Empire included Ottoman Dynasty in 150 personae non gratae of Turkey. In 1974, after 50 years, the Grand National Assembly of Turkey granted the right to re-acquire Turkish citizenship to the family descendants, which completed by the head of the family, Ertuğrul Osman V, in 2004.

Huh? I understand the first two sentences, and the start of the third, and then it turns into gibberish. I assumed that this was due to vandalism, but its been like that for at least the last 25 edits. Someone please clean this up. linas 03:39, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

NPOV

Much of the article seems to be written within a Eurocentric framework that there was an "East" and a "West" (in fact it explicitly mentions that at one point). It would make sense to put it instead in a Eurasian framework that properly understands the Ottoman Empire as one of many forces that in the past 2500 years or so have occupied various spaces in that. An alternative is to discuss the areas to the West in parts of Europe as "Christendom" and the rest of Eurasia as "not Christendom." But even that seems a bit loaded to me. --Saurav 12:13, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

Where are the Vilâyets? No administration!

The article makes no reference to Vilayets and neglects the administrative arrangements of the Ottomans! After all, where would an empire be without its administration and the transformation of the Ottoman empire into the 'sick man of Europe' was accompanied by the irreversible fragmentation of its administrative infrastructure. I read that until the 18th century, the Ottoman provinces were divided into 'Egialets' which then became 'Vilâyets'. At least, Evlya Celebi mentions Egialets and we know that later we have Vilayets. Politis 13:40, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

4yourinfo: This topic has its own page. It is a huge text and gives a lot of information. Besides there is another page about State organisation of the Ottoman Empire Details the state organization and gives a link to the content in your question. This question should be under that page. It's location is governing (govermen) and given as a further info as it should be. Check the page Subdivisions of the Ottoman Empire. I hope this satisfy your interest.--OttomanReference 18:00, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

Thanks OttomanReference, that was useful. But I still think that some mention of the administrative arrangements should be included in this article; however, I will leave things as they are. Politis 10:31, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

Cuisine

The cuisine section is now too long. I suggest that those interested start a special Ottoman cuisine article (yum, yum) Politis 13:15, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Rise

In contrast to many contemporary states, the Ottoman bureaucracy tried to avoid military rule. Although the Ottoman Empire was primarily a military state, its civics and economy did not reflect a policy of aggression. The expansionist policies of the Ottoman Empire did not lead to total war, given the fact that the Ottoman raids in the Balkans were not undertaken with the aim of destruction and booty, but with the goal of Ottoman settlement in the area. [2]

This is clearly very far from reality. The Ottoman Empire was a militaristic state that fought its enemies with extreme brutality and brought devastation to the conquered lands. Power was maintained with terror and violence much more often than with "civics and economy". The Ottoman raids in the Balkans were undertaken with the goal of capturing the rich Christian provinces that had disintegrated into multiple defendless principalities.

The sentence refered as POV is a referenced sentence, which the extent of that idea is covered under that reference. This author should refer to that text. The root of the argument is total war and after 400 years of ottoman ruling of Balkan people, besides able to come out as unique entities (under condition of total war they were expected to be totally disappeared, ottomans did not even managed to teach them the ottoman language; one should compare it with British rule of India), they managed to raid their own inter-fights. Today their edit wars are going on respective pages. The sentence that author points “Disintegrated into multiple defend less principalities”, is a really a POV of this author not the reality. This author assumes that these principalities are by product of Ottoman Empire, but not from their own culture. Which is unarguably a false conception on the author’s side. They were not defend less, they waged successful campaigns against ottomans to build their nations, and this fight continue after nearly a century of the empires dissolution. --OttomanReference 15:48, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

"The Ottoman raids in the Balkans were undertaken with the goal of capturing the rich Christian provinces that had disintegrated into multiple defendless principalities." I refer to the 14th century, not the 19th and 20th century. "Total war" does not mean complete annihilation, it means achieving victory with all necessaty means. World War II on the Eastern front was a total war, but Germany and Germans still exist today. Even if we accept that the Ottoman conquest was not a total war, it was still one of the bloodiest in history. The sentences "In contrast to many contemporary states, the Ottoman bureaucracy tried to avoid military rule. Although the Ottoman Empire was primarily a military state, its civics and economy did not reflect a policy of aggression." sound like "Ottoman troops killed anyone who resisted, burned cities to the ground and terrorized the population into submission, but as a whole their rule was based on civics and economy." I hope I made myself clear.

And another thing... Most Serbians, Bulgarians, Greeks during the Ottoman rule did understand some Turkish, but not anymore. The Ottoman empire did annihilate a very large part of the Christian population on the Balkans and it had the power to exterminate them completely or to convert them forcefully into muslims, but it didn;t have any interest in doing so, since Christians paid much higher taxes than muslims and also paid devisherme.

Real Ottoman Map

File:Real Ottoman Map.png

My map is a real Ottoman map (1699)

No, its a nonsense map. siarach 17:15, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

Yes your map is incorrect but we can use it with a detailed upgrade. We may use dark green for directly ruled lands and light green for the indirectly ruled states. For example, for many years the lands beyond Hungary was indirectly ruled by the Ottoman Dynasty. With respect, Deliogul 19:58, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

Empire or State?

I think "Ottoman" was not an empire, it was a state. If you say that USA is a "united STATES", Ottoman was more "state" then USA. If you say Ottoman was an empire, then we have to say that "USA Empire". At least, we have to see this: Ottomans didn't do an imperialism like language or religion or culture... See the world, the states for now which were in Ottoman map speak their own language, has their own religion, and culture... What about France? What about England? what about Spain? Italy? They did the real imperialism... Look at the African Nations, they speak French... Look at the Latin America, they speak Spanish... Look at the all over the world where England went, world speaks English... But non of the countries which were in Ottoman frontier speak Ottomanish or Turkish... Just Turkey speaks because it is of Turks...

So what empire? --85.104.169.51 13:14, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

But it's governed and ruled as an empire, a monarchy. An emperor (which is called a "sultan" here) owns every land every parcel and every soul on his land. He's ruling these lands in the name of his god and he rules on different continents, whites, blacks etc. A "state" is a modern word for this. Western style empires might have spreaded their cultures which ottomans did not. It's Europe you know, civilization, light of knowledge.. Spreading their cultures are the best thing they did in the world. --JohnEmerald 01:30, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

It is both. An empire (hereditary monarchy) is a kind of state as is a republic and a junta (military dictatorship)

copyediting

Grammar errors are rampant in this article. The Dissolution section is especially bad. Kaldari 21:42, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

I've been editing the article for readability, mainly. On the whole I think it's very good, however the meaning can get lost in some slightly tortured sentences sometimes. It's a long article, I'm only about halfway. I'll have a go at the Dissolution section some other time. Apologies if people don't like my edits.

--Merlinme 17:41, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

Land Area

The land area mentioned in this article seems like way too much even at the Ottoman Empires greatest extent. Comapre the 19.9 million km2 stated in this article to modern day Russia which is only 17 million km2, or even the Roman Empire, which included most of the Ottoman territories, 5.9 million km2.

19.9 millions??? This is ridicolous, only adding the PRESENT extension of the countries with ottoman territories in that time we can get a date near the 19 millions, but very far!:

-Algeria: 2.381.740

-Tunisia: 163.610

-Lybia: 1.759.540

-Egypt: 1.001.451

-Sudan: 2.505.810

-Jordan: 92.300

-Israel: 20.770

-Palestine: ?

-Lebanon: 10.400

-Syria: 185.180

-Iraq: 437.072

-Kuwait: 17.820

-Saudi Arabia: 1.960.582

-Yemen: 527.970

-Hungary: 93.030

-Croatia: 56.542

-Serbia: 88.361

-Montenegro: 13.812

-Macedonia: 25.333

-Albania: 28.748

-Greece: 131.940

-Bulgaria: 110.910

-Romania: 238.391

-Moldova: 33.843

-Ukraine: 603.700

-Turkey: 756.768

-Armenia: 29.800

-Azerbaijan: 41.370

-Georgia: 20.460

Total: 13.337.342

So...

-Fco

No-one's come back with an answer on this one. It is noted that the 19.9 million km2 is based on a 1592 estimate, and I wouldn't be surprised if it was inaccurate. I'm going to change this to be "Over 13 million km2 (modern estimate)". Please change it again if you can find a better estimate.

--Merlinme 13:00, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

Actually, I've noticed that the above list only includes 29 countries, whereas the article claims the Ottoman Empire covered 39 modern nations. I can't see any obvious names missing from the list though. I guess there could be 6 million km2 of desert someone has forgotten about. It would be nice to get a better estimate though.

--Merlinme 13:08, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

I dont think it should be as much as the "over 13 million km2" that you suggested. Many of the larger countries you mentioned, Saudi Arbaia, Egypt, Libya, Algeria, these countries were not totally occupied, and that has to be atleast 2 million km2. Also i think there is a mistake in the Roman Empire article also, because that is way less than the totals we are talking about here.

Slsquigs14 19:21, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

"The gates of Vienna"

Is it actually true that the Ottoman Empire ever extended up to the gates of Vienna, as the preamble to the article currently seems to imply? I know a couple of major battles were fought there, but did the Ottomans really ever control large parts of modern Austria?

--Merlinme 12:42, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

I think Gates of Vienna refers to the fact that the Ottoman armies laid siege to Vienna, hence they were at the gates. Personally, I wish they had taken the city and moved to Germany and France. It would have benefited the Rum miliet and the Greek patriarchate who, at the time, were very close to the Porte. Politis 18:44, 9 October 2006 (UTC)

Yes, but it currently reads: "At present 39 nation-states (40 including TRNC) have emerged from the former territories of the Ottoman Empire, which stretched from the vicinity of the Strait of Gibraltar in the west to the Caspian Sea and Persian Gulf in the east, from the gates of Vienna and the hinterland beyond Kiev in the north to Sudan and Yemen in the south." To me that, implies that the 'former territory' of the Ottoman Empire stretched up to the gates of Vienna; and I don't think that's true. Perhaps the Empire's influence extended that far, but I don't believe Austria was ever part of Ottoman territory, which the preamble currently seems to imply. I think this paragraph is actually inaccurate, but I'm not sure, which is why I've brought it up here. If no-one can help out, then I might have to do a bit of research to find out the greatest geographical extent of the Ottoman Empire extended. Currently I think the article exaggerates, at least on the Western border.

--Merlinme 17:50, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

I'm going to change this to read "from the borders of modern day Austria" rather than "from the gates of Vienna", which is I think more accurate. As always, please change it back if you can find a better way of putting it.

--Merlinme 13:02, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

No problem. But the 'TRNC' did not 'emerge' from the Ottoman empire, but from the Republic of Cyprus, which emerged from the British Empire (but that is another story). Politis 11:31, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

"Tolerant nomads"

I'm a bit confused by the numerous references in the article to the Ottomans being particularly tolerant because of their nomadic roots. I don't really understand where this comes from. I mean, the Huns were nomadic, and I doubt that anyone would have called them "tolerant".

Implying that nomads in general are tolerant either needs to be backed up with sources, or qualified as to what it actually means in regard to the particular group of nomads from which the Ottomans came, or removed.

--Merlinme 12:47, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

Architecture section needs rewriting

I've quite heavily rewritten the architecture section. It didn't make an awful lot of sense, so I've changed it to say what I think it means. However I'm quite concerned that, not being an expert on the subject, I've taken something which is unclear, and changed it into something which is clearly wrong. I would be very grateful if someone could check it.

The most obvious thing that needs updating is the date of the tomb, but I've also made quite big assumptions about what influenced what, based on what I thought the original writer meant, and I'd be surprised if there wasn't at least one error in there.

--Merlinme 17:18, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

Rewriting opening section

This section has got rather unwieldy, I'm going to cut it down and try to make it easier to read. I think there's too much detail here for an introduction.

--Merlinme 16:16, 13 October 2006 (UTC)