Streusand, Douglas E. Islamic Gunpowder Empires: Ottomans, Safavids, and Mughals. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 2010.
Sykes, Sir Percy. History of Persia. 2 vols. London: Macmillan, 1951.
Tehrani, Abu Bakr. Kitab-i Diyar Bakriyya (Ak Koyunlular Tarihi). Edited by Faruk Sümer. Tehran: Tahuri Bookstore, 1977.
Uğur, Ahmed. The Reign of Sultan Selim I in the Light of the Selim-name Literature. Berlin: Klaus Schwarz Verlag, 1985.
Janissaries
The janissaries constituted the Ottoman Empire’s elite infantry force. The janissary corps (Turkish: yeni çeri or “new soldier”) served as the backbone of Ottoman military power. The members of the corps were recruited as children from among the Christian villages of the Balkans through the devșirme (recruitment) system. The sultan and his officials did not recruit slaves from the native Muslim population. Rather, young Christian boys from the sultan’s European provinces provided him with a vast pool from which new slaves could be recruited, converted to Islam, and trained to assume the highest posts in the empire. This system resulted in the creation of the yeni çeri or janissary corps, who constituted the sultan’s elite infantry and were paid directly from the central government’s treasury.
For centuries before European states modernized their armies, the janissaries were Europe’s sole standing army. Trained and armed with the latest techniques and instruments of warfare, they scored impressive victories. They 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, and similar municipal tasks. Each janissary battalion was based in one of Istanbul’s numerous districts, where it operated out of a kolluk, which functioned as a modern-day police station. Even when the territorial expansion of the empire slowed, the recruitment of young Christian boys as soldiers and administrators did not stop. As late as the 16th century the sultan issued a fermān or a royal decree ordering his local officials to summon all Christian boys between the ages of eight and twenty in their rural districts (Inalcik: 78). The government officials selected and registered the best qualified boys and sent them in groups of 100 to 150 to Istanbul, where they were received by the āğā (commander) of the janissary corps (Inalcik: 78). The number of boys recruited through this system in the 16th century has been estimated at from 1,000 to 3,000 a year (Inalcik: 78). As the future members of the ruling elite, they had to learn Turkish and acquire the customs and etiquette of Ottoman officials. The young boys grew up with little contact with the outside world. As young men who owed their life, status, and special privileges to the sultan, they remained single until they had reached the age of 30 (Inalcik: 79). The system demanded that they devote their loyalty and services to the sultan and not to a wife and children, who could demand their time and energy.
The Janissaries were members of elite infantry units of the Ottoman Empire. The Janissary corps was staffed by young Christians from the Balkan provinces of the empire who were converted to Islam and educated at the imperial palace together with the princes of the royal family. (Private Collection/Bridgeman Images)
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 devșirme 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” (Çaksu: 118). 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 this 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” (Quataert: 45). 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. They stood for the preservation of Islam and denounced modern ideas and institutions borrowed from Europe as a conspiracy to undermine Islamic values and traditions. Islam and its preservation from Christian European influence thus served as a convenient ideological tool that unified the janissaries with the traditional urban classes, as well as with the ulema and students of religious schools.
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.
See also: Empire and Administration: Administration, Central; Sultans: Bayezid II; Mahmud II; Selim I; Primary Documents: Document 11
Further Reading
Alderson, A. D. The Structure of the Ottoman Dynasty. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1956.
Birge, John Kingsley. The Bektashi Order of Dervishes. London: Luzac, 1994.
Çaksu, Ali. “Janissary Coffee Houses in Late Eighteenth-Century Istanbul.” In Ottoman Tulips, Ottoman Coffee, Leisure and Lifestyle in the Eighteenth Century, edited by Dana Sajdi, 118. London: Tauris Academic Studies, 2007.
Finkel, Caroline. Osman’s Dream: The History of the Ottoman Empire. New York: Basic Books, 2005.
Goodwin, Godfrey. The Janissaries. London: Saqi Books, 1994.
Imber, Colin. The Ottoman Empire, 1300–1650: The Structure of Power. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002.
Inalcik, Halil. The Ottoman Empire: The Classical Age 1300–1600. Translated by Norman Itzkowitz and Colin Imber. New York: Praeger Publishers, 1973.
Lewis, Bernard. Istanbul and the Civilization of the Ottoman Empire. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1963.
McCarthy, Justin. The Ottoman Turks: An Introductory History to 1923. London and New York: Wesley Longman Limited, 1997.
Pallis, Alexander. In the Days of the Janissaries: Old Turkish Life As Depicted in the “Travel Book” of Evliya’ Çelebi. London: Hutchinson & Co., 1951.
Quataert, Donald. The Ottoman Empire, 1700–1922. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2005.
Shaw, Stanford J. History of the Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey. 2 vols. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1976.
Streusand, Douglas E. Islamic Gunpowder Empires: Ottomans, Safavids, and Mughals. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 2010.
Sugar, Peter. Southeastern Europe under Ottoman Rule, 1354–1805. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1977.
Karim Khan Zand (ca. 1705–1779)
Founder of the Zand dynasty and ruler of Iran (excluding Khorasan) from 1765 to 1779. The Zand hailed from the Lak, a branch of the Iranian-speaking Lor groups. Karim Khan was one of th
e contenders for the throne of Iran after the death of Nader Shah (r. 1736–1747) in 1747, which was followed by the eruption of a civil war. In 1775–1776 Karim Khan invaded Ottoman-held Iraq and occupied the port of Basra.
Karim Khan was born around 1705. He hailed from humble origins. He served in the armies of Nader Shah, the ruler of Iran and the founder of the Afshar dynasty, from 1736 to 1747. After the assassination of Nader Shah in 1747, civil war erupted. Karim Khan joined forces with two Bakhtiyari chiefs, Ali Mardan Khan and Abol Fath Khan. In 1750 these three chiefs seized Isfahan, the former capital of the Safavid dynasty, in the name of a Safavid prince named Abu Torab Mirza, upon whom they bestowed the title Ismail III.
While Karim Khan was busy suppressing tribal revolts in western Iran, Ali Mardan Khan murdered Abol Fath Khan; attacked Fars in southern Iran; and captured Shiraz, the capital of the province. Karim Khan returned to Isfahan in January 1751 with a large army. Soon he attacked Ali Mardan Khan and defeated his former ally. The two former allies fought a second battle in 1752, with Karim Khan scoring a decisive victory and forcing Ali Mardan Khan to flee Iran for the Ottoman Empire and seek refuge in Baghdad. Ali Mardan Khan tried his luck a third time and was defeated once again. The Bakhtiyari Khan was finally killed by a Zand commander in 1754. With Ali Mardan Khan’s death, Karim Khan emerged as the master of parts of central and western Iran.
Aside from Karim Khan, three contenders for the throne of Iran remained: The most powerful was Mohammad Hassan Khan Qajar, followed by the Ghelzai Afghan chief Azad Khan and the Afshar chief Fath Ali Khan, who hailed from Urumiyyeh in northwestern Iran. After numerous military campaigns, including several defeats, Karim Khan’s armies managed to defeat Mohammad Hassan Khan in 1759. In 1760 Azad Khan, who had sought Ottoman protection in Baghdad, returned, but his attempt to seize Azerbaijan failed. The Afghan chief was forced to seek refuge with the Georgian king, Erekle. Running out of options, Azad Khan surrendered to Karim Khan, who allowed him to live in the Zand capital, Shiraz. Fath Ali Khan Afshar also surrendered to Karim Khan, but he was executed by order of the Zand ruler in Isfahan. In 1763 Karim Khan pacified the Afshars as well as the Donboli Kurds and captured Tabriz, the capital of Azerbaijan, followed by Urumiyyeh, a short distance from Iran’s border with the Ottoman Empire. On July 21, 1765, after having eliminated all his rivals, Karim Khan returned triumphantly to Shiraz, from where he would rule Iran until his death in 1779.
Karim Khan Zand (right), the founder of the Zand dynasty (r. 1751–1794), in Iran with the Ottoman ambassador, Vehbi Effendi. (Fine Art Images/Heritage Images/Getty Images)
Karim Khan refused to assume the Persian title king of kings (shahanshah) but instead used the title vakil al-ra’aya (deputy or representative of the subjects). Though he had imposed his rule over Iran, Karim Khan refused to invade Khorasan, which was ruled by Shahrokh, a grandson of Nader Shah. Karim Khan chose the city of Shiraz in present-day southern Iran as his capital. To beautify his capital, Karim Khan sponsored the construction of magnificent citadels, mosques, gardens, bazaars, baths, caravanserais, and schools. To revive agricultural production, which had suffered for several decades, he lowered taxes on peasant farmers. Karim Khan was a patron of the arts, and he invited scholars and poets to his court in Shiraz.
Karim Khan opened Iran to foreign influence by allowing the East India Company to establish a trading post in the Persian Gulf port of Bushehr in 1763. He was anxious to expand Iran’s commercial ties with European states and particularly with the British in India (Nami Isfahani: 195–211). In search of a port city that could serve as Iran’s gateway to the Persian Gulf, Karim Khan dispatched his troops under the command of his brother, Sadeq Khan, against the Ottoman-held port of Basra in southern Iraq at the mouth of the Persian Gulf. Basra had diverted much of the trade with British India away from Iranian ports. After a siege of 13 months, the city surrendered in April 1776 (Nami Esfahani: 195–211). The invasion and occupation of Basra caused a new state of conflict and warfare between Iran and the Ottoman Empire. Karim Khan’s army remained in control of Basra until his death. His death in March 1779 ignited a civil war in Iran, which forced the Persian garrison to evacuate Basra.
See also: Empire and Administration: Nader Shah Afshar; Sultans: Abdülhamid I
Further Reading
Mohammad Hashem Asef. Rostam al-Tawarikh. Edited by Mohammad Moshiri. Tehran: Sepehr Publishing House, 1972.
Nami Esfahani, Mirza Mohammad Sadeq Mousavi. Tarikh-e Giti Gosha. Tehran: Eqbal, 1990.
Perry, John R. Karim Khan Zand: A History of Iran 1747–1779. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1979.
Perry, John R. “The Zand Dynasty.” In Cambridge History of Iran, edited by Peter Avery, G. R. G. Hambly, and C. Melville, 7:63–126. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1997.
Lawrence, T. E. (Lawrence of Arabia)
(1888–1935)
British archaeologist, author, and intelligence officer who claimed to have played a prominent role in the Arab Revolt against the Ottoman Empire during World War I. Thomas Edward Lawrence was born on August 16, 1888, in Tremadoc (Tremadog), Wales. He was the illegitimate son of Sir Thomas Chapman and Sara Maden, the Scottish governess of Sir Thomas’s daughters, who was herself illegitimate. Chapman had abandoned his wife in Ireland to live with Sara. The couple had five sons, and Thomas Edward was the second.
In 1896 the Lawrence family moved to Oxford, where T. E. attended high school and studied history at Jesus College. He graduated from Jesus College with first class honors. As a young student he was fascinated with medieval crusader castles in France and Syria. Following his academic interest, Lawrence went to France and then Syria in 1910. His thesis, Crusader Castles, was published after his death in 1936. From 1911 to 1914 he worked on an excavation site in Carchemish on the Euphrates River on the present-day border between Syria and Turkey. During his stay in Syria he traveled and interacted with the local population, while at the same time developing full proficiency in Arabic language and culture. In 1914, before the beginning of World War I, Lawrence participated in map-making reconnaissance that focused on the northern Sinai and the territory extending from Gaza in the north to Aqaba in the south.
When World War I began, Lawrence was working at the War Office’s Map Department in London. His job was to produce an accessible map of Sinai for the British military. He was then reassigned to Cairo. Lawrence spent a year in Cairo, producing maps, processing information and data from British agents behind Ottoman lines, and writing a handbook on the Ottoman army. In 1915 two of his brothers, Will and Frank, were killed in action in France. The deaths of his brothers had a profound impact on Lawrence.
The English officer, T. E. Lawrence, played an important role in the Arab revolt against the Ottoman Empire, which began in June 1916. (Library of Congress)
Based on British promises of support for the establishment of an independent and united Arab state at the end of the war, Hussein ibn Ali (Sharif Hussein) of Mecca staged a revolt against the Ottoman Empire in June 1916. During his first trip to Hijaz in 1916, Lawrence met Sharif Hussein and his two sons, Abdullah and Faisal. Back in Cairo, Lawrence urged the British authorities to supply the Arabs with gold and guns. His mastery of Arabic language and his familiarity with Arab tribal politics, culture, and traditions convinced the British government to assign him as liaison officer to Prince Faisal, the military leader of the Arab Revolt. Though he was not the only British officer involved in the Arab Revolt, he claimed later that he was in fact the brains behind the hit-and-run guerrilla operations carried out by Arab forces against Ottoman targets, in particular the Hijaz railway that connected Damascus, the capital of Syria, to Medina in western Arabia. The destruction of the railway prevented the Ottomans from supplying their forces with reinforcements to suppress the Arab uprising.
On July 6, 1917, Arab forces captured Aqaba at the northernmost tip of the Red Sea. In his book Seven Pillars of Wisdom, Lawrence claimed that in November 1917 he was captured at Dar῾ā by
a group of Ottoman soldiers, who raped him before he managed to escape. This story has been challenged by a number of scholars and Lawrence biographers, who view the incident as fictitious. In December 1917 the British forces entered Jerusalem. In October 1918 the armies of Prince Faisal, accompanied by Lawrence, captured Damascus. By then Lawrence was an exhausted and disillusioned man, painfully aware that he had lied to his Arab allies about the secret agreement reached between the British and the French governments. The two European powers had secretly partitioned the Arab Middle East into spheres of influence through the so-called Sykes-Picot Agreement.
Lawrence departed the Middle East for England before the signing of the Mudros Armistice on October 30, 1918. After his return to London he was awarded the Order of the Bath by King George V at a royal audience, but he refused to accept it. Lawrence left the British army with the rank of lieutenant colonel in July 1919. During the Paris Peace Conference in 1919 Lawrence joined Prince Faisal and the Arab delegation. As did the Arab leadership, Lawrence opposed handing Syria (including Lebanon) as a mandate to the French. In March 1921 Lawrence returned to the Middle East as an adviser to Winston Churchill, who was serving at the time as colonial minister. After political settlements were reached on the future of the Arab Middle East in Cairo, Lawrence resigned from his post and returned to England. After his resignation, Lawrence rejected all offers of another post in the government. In 1922 he enlisted for a short time in the Royal Air Force (RAF). In March 1923 he was enlisted as a private in the Royal Tank Corps. In 1925 he rejoined the RAF, and two years later he changed his name from Lawrence to Shaw.
Seven Pillars of Wisdom was published in 1926–1927. Seven Pillars is the biographical account of Lawrence’s experiences as a liaison officer to the army of Prince Faisal during the desert campaign and the Arab Revolt against the Ottoman Empire from 1916 to 1918. The book glorifies the author as the true brain and architect of the Arab Revolt. Seven Pillars was dedicated to S. A., which according to some stood for Selim Ahmed, also known as Dahoum, a young Syrian man with whom Lawrence enjoyed a very close relationship. Some have suggested that the two may have been engaged in a homosexual relationship. In a poem addressed to Selim Ahmed in the opening of the book, Lawrence wrote:
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