The Government of the Ottoman Empire in the Time of Suleiman the Magnificent
Albert Howe Lybyer
9781465515797
213 pages
Library of Alexandria
Overview
A nation, when considered from its earliest to its latest days, is much more a body of ideas than a race of men. Men die, families decay, the original stock tends to disappear; new individuals are admitted from without, new family groups take the lead, whole tribes are incorporated and absorbed; after centuries the anthropological result often bears but slight resemblance to the original type. Undoubtedly the fabric of ideas which a nation weaves as its history develops also undergoes changes of pattern; old principles pass out of sight, and new ones, born of circumstance, or brought in from without, come to controlling influence. But ideas are not, like men, mortal: they can be transmitted from man to man through ages; they can be stored in books and thus pass from the dead to the living; when built together into a solid and attractive structure, they impart to the whole something of their individual immortality. Singly they pass as readily to strangers as to kindred; when organized to rounded completeness as the culture of a great living nation, they have a power which lays hold of men of many races, alone or in masses, and in the absence of strong prejudice compels acceptance. Such an assimilative force can clearly be seen in vigorous operation in the United States of America today. A system of ideas, woven of countless threads spun by Egyptian, Babylonian, Hebrew, Greek, Roman, and Teuton, preserved and enlarged by Frank, Anglo-Saxon, Norman, and Englishman, recombined in a new and striking pattern by the founders of the republic, is thrown over men from every nation under heaven, who under its influence all become of one type, not to be mistaken wherever it is seen. The history of the Ottoman Empire reveals the constant working of a like assimilative force. It was not merely, and not even mainly, the compulsion of the sword that built up and maintained the strongest national power of the sixteenth century. Swords must be wielded by men; and how were enough strong and capable men found and bound together in willing coöperation to conquer large sections of Europe, Asia, and Africa, to organize and govern their conquests in a fairly satisfactory fashion, and to establish a structure which, after more than three hundred years of decay, disaster, and disintegration, has yet enough strength to form the basis for a new departure? The only answer possible is that the attraction of a great body of national ideas gathered men from every direction and many races to unite in a common effort. Although much violence, injustice, and destructive passion was involved, the result was a great and on the whole a durable and useful empire. The government of the Ottoman Empire when at the height of its power cannot be understood from a description of its court, costumes, ceremonies, and officials, with a catalogue of their provinces and duties. A thorough comprehension of the main political ideas that constituted the life of the empire is essential. Since most of these ideas were old and tried, and were wrought in a thousand ways into the general scheme, a complete treatment would demand that they should be considered historically from the time of their adoption. Nor would it be sufficient to go back to the beginning of the house of Osman. The Turkish nucleus which gathered around him, and the Mohammedans and Christians from near and far who joined his rising fortunes were already in possession, in a fairly systematic form, of most of the ideas of the completed Ottoman government. The inquiry should be begun farther back, among Byzantine Greeks, Seljuk Turks, Mohammedans of Persia and Arabia, and Turks of Central Asia. Many of the ideas, indeed, can be traced yet farther, through Tartary to China and through Parthia and Rome to Babylon and Egypt.
