The Ottoman Empire: a Historical Encyclopedia [2 Volumes]

by Kia, Mehrdad;

  I loved you, so I drew these tides of

  Men into my hands

  And wrote my will across the

  Sky and stars

  To earn you freedom, the seven

  Pillared worthy house,

  That your eyes might be

  Shining for me

  When I came

  Lawrence spent several years in India before returning to England in 1929. For the next six years he worked as an RAF mechanic. On May 13, 1935, Lawrence was critically injured when he swerved his motorcycle to avoid colliding with two boys on bicycles. Six days later, on May 19, Lawrence succumbed to his injuries. He died at the hospital of his former RAF camp.

  The myth of Lawrence of Arabia as the lone desert warrior dressed in exotic Arab garb and fighting for freedom and independence of an oppressed people against the hated and barbaric Turks was the fictional creation of the American journalist Lowell Thomas (1892–1981), who elevated Lawrence from an ordinary British officer fighting in an isolated corner of Arabia into an enigmatic war hero singlehandedly fighting for the freedom of the Arab people.

  Looking for a sensational story of heroism that could attract large audiences, Thomas traveled to Europe and then to the Middle East. He met T. E. Lawrence in Jerusalem. Lawrence’s seemingly romantic figure, dressed in exotic Arab uniform, fired Thomas’s imagination, and he spent two weeks with the British intelligence officer. When Thomas returned to the United States in 1919, he sold his “Lawrence of Arabia” in a series of lecture-film shows in which he presented a highly romanticized account of the gallant and flamboyant T. E. Lawrence leading the good war against the evil Turks. Thomas’s presentations were especially astonishing and enthralling because they were supplemented by stunning images of dashing Arabs in their dazzling garb riding their camels into the battlefields of Palestine and Syria. Thomas’s scintillating presentations took America by storm as the public rushed to see World War I, not through the heart-wrenching images of the killing fields of Somme and Verdun, but through the confident and smiling face of a hero who had singlehandedly brought down an old and decaying empire. Soon Thomas was invited to England, where he opened his dog-and-pony show on August 14, 1919, inaugurating a series of several hundred lecture-film presentations, attended by thousands, who fell in love with the image of the lonely and determined English warrior fighting for the freedom of a backward people. In 1962, as the British, no longer a colonial power, were packing up their bags and leaving the Arab Middle East, the English filmmaker/director David Lean and English producer Sam Spiegel created the historical epic Lawrence of Arabia, based on the life of T. E. Lawrence as told by Lawrence in Seven Pillars. The movie, starring the English actor Peter O’Toole, only reinforced the myth of Lawrence as the lonely warrior who had planned and carried out the Arab Revolt despite the backwardness, chaos, fragmentation, and disarray of Arab politics and society.

  See also: Battles and Treaties: Balfour Declaration; Sykes-Picot Agreement; Rebels: Hussein ibn Ali and the Hussein-McMahon Correspondence

  Further Reading

  Anderson, Scott. Lawrence of Arabia: War, Deceit, Imperial Folly and the Making of the Modern Middle East. New York: Anchor, 2014.

  Fromkin, David. A Peace to End all Peace: The Fall of the Ottoman Empire and the Creation of the Modern Middle East. New York: Henry Holt, 2009.

  Hamilton, John Maxwell. Journalism’s Roving Eye: A History of American Foreign Reporting. Baton Rouge: LSU Press, 2009.

  James, Lawrence. The Golden Warrior: The Life and Legend of Lawrence of Arabia. New York: Skyhorse Publishing, 2008.

  Lawrence, T. E. Seven Pillars of Wisdom: A Triumph. Blacksburg, VA: Wilder Publications, 2011.

  Rogan, Eugene. The Fall of the Ottomans: The Great War in the Middle East. New York: Basic Books, 2015.

  Zürcher, Erik-Jan. Turkey: A Modern History. London: I.B. Tauris, 2004.

  Muhtasib and Ihtisab

  A muhtasib was a market inspector responsible for enforcing the hisba regulations in Ottoman markets. The hisba were the rules regarding commercial transactions and public morals. All Ottoman guilds were obligated to abide by the traditional rules and regulations, which had been set down in the manuals of the semireligious fraternities (futuwwa), guild certificates, and various imperial edicts (fermāns) (Inalcik: 153). Specific laws and regulations (ihtisab) governed public morals and commercial transactions (Inalcik: 153). All guilds were obligated to follow and respect these rules, which included the right to fix prices and set standards for evaluating the quality of goods that would be sold by tradesmen. Negotiations between the representatives of the central government and the guild masters set the prices of goods and the criteria for judging the quality of a product (Inalcik: 154). The state involved itself in this process to ensure the collection of taxes from each guild and to support the enforcement of the ihtisab laws and regulations (Inalcik: 153).

  A market inspector, or muhtasib, and his assistants were responsible for enforcing public morals and the established rules. Strolling purposefully through the markets, they apprehended violators and brought them to face the local kādi (religious judge). They enforced the sentence handed down by the kādi by flogging or fining the violators. According to Islamic traditions and practices, the muhtasib dealt primarily with “matters connected with defective weights and measures, fraudulent sales and non-payment of debts” (Levy: 334). Commercial knavery “was especially within his [the muhtasib’s] jurisdiction, and in the markets he had supervision over all traders and artisans” (Levy: 336). In addition to his police duties, he also fulfilled the responsibilities of a magistrate (Levy: 334). He could try cases summarily only if the truth was not in doubt. As soon as a case involved claims and counterclaims and “the evidence had to be sifted and oaths to be administered,” disputes were referred to the kādi (Inalcik: 154). The muhtasib was also the official responsible for stamping certain materials, “such as timber, tile or cloth, according to their standard and [he] prohibited the sale of unstamped materials” (Böcking, Salm-Reifferscheidt, and Stipsicz: 53).

  A European observer who visited the Ottoman Empire at the beginning of the 17th century described one form of punishment applied by the muhtasib: “Sometimes a cheat is made to carry around a thick plank with a hole cut in the middle, so his head can go through it…. Whenever he wants to rest, he has to pay out a few aspers [silver coins]. At the front and back of the plank hang cowbells, so that he can be heard from a distance. On top of it lies a sample of the goods with which he has tried to cheat his customers. And as a supposedly special form of mockery, he is made to wear a German hat” (Davey: 2:304–305). As the official responsible for the maintenance and preservation of public morals, the muhtasib had to ensure that men did not consort with women in public, and it was his duty to identify and punish bad behavior, particularly stealing, drunkenness, and wine drinking in public. A thief who was caught red-handed would be nailed by his ears and feet to the open shutter of the shop he had tried to rob. He was left in that state for two days without food or water (Davey: 2:304–305). The muhtasib could take action against violations and offenses only if they had been committed in public and did not have the right to enter a house and violate the privacy of a family (Davey: 2:304–305).

  TRADE GUILDS IN OTTOMAN EMPIRE

  In Turkey of the Ottomans the British folklorist and traveler Lucy Mary Jane Garnett described the status of trade guilds in the Ottoman Empire in the early 20th century:

  The Esnafs or Trade Guilds, constitute an important feature of urban industrial life, especially at Constantinople, where representatives of all the various trades, crafts, and callings practiced in the Empire are to be found. Each Esnaf [sinf] has in every quarter of the city and suburbs one or more lonjas, or lodges, presided over by several officers called respectively according to their rank, Sheikhs, Naibs, Oustas, and Kiayas, or Priors, Superintendents, and Inspectors, who are annually elected by the members from among its own master craftsmen, these officers being formally recogn
ised by the Government, which holds them responsible for the good behaviour of their fellow-guildsmen. The internal organisation of the Esnafs remains practically the same as it was in earlier centuries, its members, as in the industrial guilds of Europe generally, falling into the three grades of oustas or masters, kalfas, or journeymen, and tchiraks, or apprentices. The lines of demarcation are strongly marked between these three grades. A kalfa owes respect and obedience to his ousta, and apprentices are required to be duly submissive to both. A tchirak desiring admission to the guild of his craft is recommended by the ousta under whom he has served his time to the Prior of his lodge, his formal admission being attended with traditional ceremonies and the payment of certain fees. The Esnaf of each craft and calling has its own peculiar traditional laws and usages, as well as its special kanoun or written constitution.

  Source: Lucy Mary Jane Garnett, Turkey of the Ottomans (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1915), 157–159.

  Further Reading

  Böcking, Isabel, Laura Salm-Reifferscheidt, and Moritz Stipsicz. The Bazaars of Istanbul. London: Thames & Hudson, 2009.

  Davey, Richard. The Sultan and His Subjects. 2 vols. London: Chapman and Hall, 1897.

  Evliya Çelebi. Seyahatnameh, Book of Travels. Vol. V, Evliya Çelebi in Albania and Adjacent Regions (Kosovo, Montenegro, Ohrid). Edited by Robert Dankoff and Robert Elise. Leiden: Brill, 2000.

  Evliya Effendi. Narratives of Travels in Europe, Asia, and Africa in the Seventeenth Century. 2 vols. Translated by Ritter Joseph Von Hammer. n.p.: Johnson Reprint Corporation, 1968.

  Faroqhi, Suraiya. Artisans of Empire: Crafts and Craftspeople under the Ottomans. London: I. B. Tauris, 2009.

  Faroqhi, Suraiya. Making a Living in the Ottoman Lands, 1480 to 1820. Istanbul: Isis Press, 1995.

  Faroqhi, Suraiya. Subjects of the Sultan: Culture and Daily Life in the Ottoman Empire. London: I. B. Tauris, 2000.

  Inalcik, Halil. The Ottoman Empire: The Classical Age, 1300–1600. Translated by Norman Itzkowitz and Colin Imber. New York: Praeger Publishers, 1973.

  Issawi, Charles. The Economic History of Turkey, 1800–1914. Chicago: University of Chicago Press: 1980.

  Levy, Reuben. The Social Structure of Islam. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1969.

  Quataert, Donald. Ottoman Manufacturing in the Age of the Industrial Revolution. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2002.

  Quataert, Donald, and Erik-Jan Zürcher. Workers and Working Class in the Ottoman Empire and the Turkish Republic, 1840–1950. London: I. B. Tauris, 1995.

  Somel, Selçuk Akșin. Historical Dictionary of the Ottoman Empire. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2003.

  Nader Shah Afshar (1688–1747)

  The shah of Iran and the founder of a short-lived Afshar (Afsharid) dynasty, which at its height ruled a vast empire extending from India and Central Asia in the east to northern Iraq in the west. He defeated the Ghilzai Afghans, who had overthrown the Safavid dynasty (1501–1722), and forced the Russian and the Ottoman armies, which had invaded Iran, to withdraw. Nader reconstituted the Iranian state as a major power in southwest Asia. He also developed a reputation as a brilliant military strategist and an outstanding leader of men on the battlefield.

  Nader was born in 1688 into a branch of the Afshar tribe, which had been settled in Darreh Gaz in the Khorasan province of northeastern Iran. The Afshars were one of the Qizilbash tribes that constituted the military backbone of the Safavid state. The Safavids had settled a branch of the Afshar in Khorasan to defend the province from incursions by the marauding Uzbeks, who raided present-day northeastern Iran and northwestern Afghanistan from Central Asia. Nader may have become at best a local leader had it not been for the fall of the Safavid state in 1722.

  In 1719 the declining Safavid Empire was invaded by an army of Ghilzai Afghan tribesmen from present-day southern Afghanistan. In October 1722 a Ghilzai Afghan army led by Mahmud, a tribal leader from southern Afghanistan, entered the Iranian capital, Isfahan, and deposed the reigning Safavid monarch, Soltan Hossein (r. 1694–1722) (Roemer: 324). A son of Soltan Hossein, Tahmasp, fled Isfahan for Qazvin, where he ascended the throne as Tahmasp II. Tahmasp intended to rally local notables and tribal chiefs against the invading Ghilzai Afghans.

  Nader Shah Afshar (r. 1736–1747), who emerged as the ruler of Iran in 1736, created an Iranian empire which at the height of its power stretched from the Indus River to northern Iraq. (Los Angeles County Museum of Art)

  The collapse of the Safavid state enticed both the Ottomans and Russians to invade Iran and seize as much territory as possible. The Russian czar, Peter the Great, saw the disintegration of the Safavid monarchy as an opportunity to acquire much of the Caucasus region, as well as Iran’s Caspian provinces of Gilan and Mazandaran. The disappearance of their old Shia nemesis also created opportunities as well as anxieties for the Ottomans. Battered by the wars with the Habsburgs and the treaties of Karlowitz and Passarowitz, the Ottomans now had an opportunity to regain their lost credibility by scoring a speedy victory in Iran. Sultan Ahmed III (r. 1703–1730) and his grand vizier, Ibrahim Pasha, could use the vacuum created by the collapse of the Safavid state to occupy its western provinces and increase the revenue collected by the central government. But as already mentioned, the sultan was not the only sovereign determined to conquer valuable territory. Having successfully triumphed over Sweden, Peter the Great also was determined to profit from the sudden disappearance of the Safavid state in Iran, a country that could serve Russia as a land bridge to the warm waters of the Persian Gulf and the riches of India.

  Using Astrakhan and the Volga River, Peter transported his armies through Daghistan to capture Darbend on the western shores of the Caspian Sea, claiming all along that he had invaded Iran to rescue it from the Afghan invaders. Recognizing the threat posed by the arrival of Russian forces on their eastern frontiers, the Ottomans invaded Iran to prevent Peter from occupying Azerbaijan, Armenia, and Georgia. Jointly recognizing the need to avoid a military conflict over Iran, in 1722 the Ottoman and the Russian governments began to negotiate an agreement that allowed the sultan to move his troops into Georgia. The Ottomans sent two armies to the east, the first entering the capital of Georgia, Tbilisi, in July 1723 and the second occupying the western Iranian town of Kermanshah in October (Roemer: 327). In a treaty signed on June 24, 1724, Ahmed III and Peter effectively partitioned northern and western Iran into Russian and Ottoman spheres of influence (Roemer: 327). This partition allowed Russia to claim the southern Caspian provinces of Gilan and Mazandaran, as well as the eastern and central Caucasus all the way to the confluence of the Aras and Kur Rivers. All the territory west of this partition line, including the Iranian provinces of Azerbaijan, Kurdistan, and Luristan, along with the important cities of Tabriz, Kermanshah, and Hamadan, were to be annexed by the Ottomans (Sykes: 2:237–238). The treaty allowed Ottoman forces to occupy Hamadan in August 1724, followed by Yerevan in October. On August 3, 1725, the Ottomans entered Tabriz, while a second and smaller force captured the town of Ganja in the present-day Republic of Azerbaijan in September. The Afghans remained in occupation of Isfahan, Shiraz, and most of southeastern Iran.

  Iranians who wished to resist the foreign occupation of their country began to rally around the Safavid prince Tahmasp, who had declared himself the shah and was living in hiding in northern Iran. To put the Ottomans on the defensive, the Afghan leader, Ashraf, sent an emissary to Istanbul to complain to the sultan about his alliance with Russia, a Christian power, and about his support for the Shia Safavids against the Sunni Afghans (Sykes: 2:239). The response from the Ottomans to this accusation was swift. The sultan declared war on the Afghans and ordered his troops to move on Isfahan. Having seized the city of Maragheh in Azerbaijan and Qazvin two hours west of present-day Tehran, the Ottoman army was moving south toward Isfahan when it was confronted and defeated by an Afghan force. Despite their impressive victory, the Afghans sued for peace (Sykes: 2:240). In return for the Afghans recognizing
the Ottoman sultan as the caliph of the Islamic world, the Ottoman sultan recognized the Afghan leader Ashraf as the shah of Iran (Sykes: 2:240).

  The newly established Afghan rule in Iran was, however, short-lived. The Safavid prince Tahmasp, who had proclaimed himself the shah of Iran, was now joined by Nader, who would emerge as the savior of Iran and the last great Iranian conqueror (Astarabadi: 175–183). Using the northeastern Iranian province of Khorasan as his base of operations, Nader attacked the Afghans. He first routed the Abdali Afghans near Herat in spring 1729. He then moved against the capital, Isfahan, and in September 1729 inflicted a devastating defeat on the main Afghan army, led by the Afghan ruler, Ashraf at Mehmandoust. Ashraf and his defeated Afghan army fled Iran for Qandahar in present-day southern Afghanistan. The victory over the Afghans allowed Tahmasp to return to Isfahan and re-establish himself as the shah of Iran, although by then the true power behind the throne was Nader (Astarabadi: 2020–2243).

  With the Afghans in flight, Nader moved against the Ottomans in July 1730, forcing them to withdraw from Hamadan and Nahavand in western Iran. The defeat jolted the Ottoman capital. In September 1730, as the Ottoman army was preparing another campaign against Iran, Patrona Halil, an officer of Albanian origin, staged a revolt, which was joined by the ulema and a large number of soldiers and civilians after they denounced the sultan and Ibrahim Pasha for mismanaging the war and losing territory to the Shia infidels. To save his throne, the sultan ordered the execution of his grand vizier on October 1, but the rebellion did not subside. The sultan then agreed to abdicate in favor of the oldest living prince of the Ottoman dynasty, who ascended the throne as Mahmud I (Kurat and Bromley: 218–219). The uncertainty of the transition period and the weakness of the new sultan allowed Patrona Halil and his supporters to impose a reign of terror in Istanbul, burning and destroying the palaces that had been built during the Tulip period and killing their wealthy owners. The crisis spread to towns across the empire, and rebels began to extort money from business and home owners in the capital and demanded a voice in the everyday affairs of the central government. By mid-November the new sultan and his advisers had to put an end to the rebellion. Patrona Halil and his supporters were invited to the palace, where they expected to discuss the next campaign against Iran. Instead, they were attacked and killed by the agents of the sultan. Peace or some facsimile thereof was once again restored.