Daily Life In The Ottoman Empire

by Mehrdad Kia

  In many villages there were schools, but they admitted only boys. The classes were not designed to teach sciences or practical crafts and trades. Instead, young Muslim boys learned how to pray and recite the holy Quran by heart. In exceptional cases, a talented child might be sent by his teacher, who often came from the lower ranks of the religious establishment, to a nearby town where he could attend a school attached to a mosque, but such cases were extremely rare. The majority of the young male population in rural communities of the Ottoman Empire did not receive any formal education and learned how to work the field from their fathers, older brothers, and uncles. As young boys, they started their training by keeping watch over the family’s sheep and goats. They then moved with their fathers to the field, where they helped with sowing and harvesting. As they grew older, the nature of their work became increasingly more difficult and they spent longer hours at it. If they displayed a lack of discipline and seriousness, they could be subjected to beating by their fathers or older brothers.

  Although they could not attend the village school, young girls received a household education at home. Mothers taught their daughters how to cook, sew, tend to the family’s animals, and take care of the younger children in the household. Girls as young as seven or eight carried newly born babies in their arms, changed their diapers, and fed them with little supervision from their parents. This served as a form of apprenticeship, which trained and prepared young girls for the time when they became wives and mothers. As for values, girls were taught proper, modest, and chaste behavior. They had to demonstrate absolute obedience and respect toward their parents and other older members of the family. They also had to preserve their virginity until they were married. Loss of virginity was viewed as a colossal violation that resulted in expulsion from the village, and sometimes in the death of “the violator,” who had failed to preserve the honor of her family.

  In the Balkans, the Orthodox Christian peasantry was controlled by the Orthodox Church through the millet system and the village authorities. These two institutions acted as intermediaries between the Ottoman central government and the rural communities, and were the most essential elements in the everyday life of Balkan Christian peasants. Though aware of the power of the local Ottoman sipahi, who was responsible for collecting taxes, the peasant “was most directly affected by the actions of officials of his own religion, including his ecclesiastical authorities.” For Christian peasants of the Balkans, Sundays and various Saint’s Days broke up the monotony of their everyday lives. On such days, peasants typically took off their plain, dark homespun dress; donned their colorful best; and attended the early mass in a small white-washed church. After returning home, they fed the cattle and chickens and prepared a simple meal. Afterwards, the elders retired to the village’s coffeehouse and matrons relaxed in the shade while children played and the young men and women of the village played music and danced.

  In the Ottoman Empire, “villages were connected to the outer world through market towns,” which served as the centers “of both commerce and government.” The governor of the district, a religious judge, responsible for enforcement of Islamic law, tax collectors, and a small unit of janissaries, usually resided in these towns. Since many villages were located within a day’s walk of a market town, peasant farmers could sell their surplus at the local town market; purchase “agricultural implements, farm animals, and other necessities,” such as a “bolt of cloth” and jewelry; and return home by nightfall. Besides the markets, in their short trips to the nearby town, the villagers could visit mosques, tombs of saints and Sufi leaders, derviş lodges, schools, public baths, shops, coffeehouses, bakeries, mills, slaughterhouses, warehouses, government buildings, military barracks, and public water houses, which provided the town’s water supply.

  5 – RELIGIOUS COMMUNITIES

  The Ottoman Empire was vast and contained numerous religious, ethnic, and linguistic communities such as Turks, Tatars, Arabs, Kurds, Circassians, Armenians, Greeks, Albanians, Serbs, Bosnians, Croatians, Bulgarians, Romanians, Hungarians, Jews, and many others. In “the Balkan Peninsula, Slavonic, Greek and Albanian speakers were undoubtedly in the majority, but besides these, there were substantial minorities of Turks and romance-speaking Vlachs.” In Anatolia, the majority of the population spoke Turkish, but there were also significant Greek-, Armenian-, and Kurdish-speaking communities. In “Syria, Iraq, Arabia, Egypt and north Africa, most of the population spoke dialects of Arabic.” In the urban centers of the empire, the population included Muslims, Christians, and Jews. As the religion of the Ottoman sultans and the ruling elite, Islam was the empire’s dominant creed. The Greek and Armenian Orthodox churches, however, retained an important place within its political structure and ministered to large Christian communities, which in many areas outnumbered Muslims. There was also a substantial community of Jews scattered throughout the empire. Aside from these main religious groups, numerous other Christian and non-Christian communities resided throughout the empire.

  To impose its rule over such a diverse population and maintain peace and security for its subjects, the Ottoman state downplayed ethnic and linguistic differences and instead emphasized religion as the primary form of identity. The central government organized the non-Muslim population “into three officially sanctioned millets: Greek orthodox, headed by the ecumenical patriarch, Armenians, headed by the Armenian patriarch of Istanbul, and Jews, who after 1835 were headed by the hahambaşi [chief rabbi] in Istanbul.” Each religious community, or millet, enjoyed cultural and legal autonomy and managed its own internal affairs under the leadership of its own religious hierarchy. Unlike “the Christian churches, the Jews of the empire did not have a pre-existing clerical hierarchy.” Instead of patriarchs and bishops, the Jews of an Ottoman town or city governed their community autonomously. Since Islam was the official religion of the Ottoman Empire, the Muslims were not considered a separate millet. The Muslim community was, however, organized in the same manner as the Christian communities.

  As a self-governing body, which was responsible for managing its own internal affairs, each millet elected its own leader, who received the blessing and approval of the sultan. The state vested sufficient executive power in each millet leader to enable him to collect taxes from the members of his community. The tolerance displayed by the Ottoman sultans did not mean that the Jews and Christians of the empire were viewed and treated as equal to Muslims. In accordance with Islamic law, or şeriat (Arabic: sharia), Jews and Christians were “People of the Book” and considered zimmi (Arabic: dhimmi), or protected religious communities that lived under the authority of a Muslim sovereign. The sultan was required to protect the lives and property of his Jewish and Christian subjects, who were obligated to pay the Ottoman government a poll tax, or cizye, in return for not serving in the military. In all legal matters, Islamic law had precedence and Islamic courts were open to all subjects of the sultan.

  CHRISTIANS

  The Christian population of the Ottoman Empire was heterogeneous. The central government recognized two principal Christian millets, namely, the Orthodox and the Armenian Gregorian. Other Christian communities such as the Maronites, Nestorians, and Syrian Orthodox were not recognized as millets, although, for all practical purposes, they functioned as autonomous religious communities under their own leaders. The Ottoman state did not concern itself with the daily life, customs, and rituals of its Christian subjects. Instead of dealing with individuals and their religious needs and demands, the Ottomans showed a clear preference for using religious hierarchies and local elites as intermediaries, who would control their own communities and, at times of crisis, could be blamed for problems and shortcomings. Thus, indirect and decentralized rule was the hallmark of the Ottoman political culture.

  ORTHODOX CHRISTIAN MILLET

  Military conquests in the Balkan Peninsula in the 14th and 15th centuries resulted in Ottoman rule over vast territories inhabited by Orthodox Christians. Regardless of their ethnic, lingu
istic, and cultural differences, all Orthodox Christians; namely Greeks, Bulgarians, Serbs, Montenegrins, Macedonians, Romanians, and Albanian Christians, were viewed as members of the same millet. The religious hierarchy and the power structure within the Orthodox religious community was, however, dominated by the Ecumenical Patriarch of Istanbul, who served as the religious head of all Orthodox subjects of the sultan. After conquering Constantinople, Mehmed II appointed the influential Byzantine scholar-monk Bishop Gennadios Scholarius as the patriarch of the Orthodox Church because of his strong opposition to union with Rome and the Latin West.

  The system created by the Ottomans allowed the patriarch, who enjoyed full control over all Orthodox churches in the empire and their property, to be elected by the Holy Synod (a high council of bishops, which acted as the ruling body of the church) and then confirmed by the sultan. Other church administrators were appointed and dismissed by the synod and the patriarch with the approval of the sultan.

  With the imposition of direct Ottoman rule over the Balkans, former civil administrations disintegrated and those who resisted Muslim Turkish rule either fled or were killed or excluded from office. In their place, Ottoman authorities empowered local religious leaders and clergymen who were willing to cooperate with the new Ottoman provincial administration. An alliance with the Orthodox Church provided the Ottoman state with a golden opportunity to legitimize its rule. By utilizing institutions of the Orthodox Church, such as the many monasteries that played a central role in the daily lives of Orthodox Christians, the Ottoman government consolidated its legitimacy with the populations it had conquered. Faced with possible subordination to or forced union with its traditional rival and enemy, the Roman Catholic Church, the Orthodox Church chose to survive by aligning itself with the sultan. The Ottoman state allowed the Orthodox clergy to work under the jurisdiction of their own religious courts, and they were exempt from taxation. Each church ensured its own financial welfare and security through assessing various fees, soliciting donations, and receiving income from property it owned.

  By the beginning of the 18th century, the power and authority of the patriarch of Istanbul had become significant. He was not only the head of the Orthodox Christian millet but also the ethnarch (secular ruler) of the entire Orthodox population. The Ottoman government held him responsible “for the behavior and loyalty of his flock.” With the blessing and support from the sultan, the Orthodox Church taxed its constituency in accordance with its own administrative regulations and arrangements. In judicial matters, the church enjoyed full jurisdiction over a wide range of functions, such as marriage, divorce, and even commercial cases involving Christians, and, though criminal cases such as murder and theft came under the Muslim judicial system, the Orthodox courts handled them as well, as long as a Muslim was not involved. Using “canon law, Byzantine statuary law, local customs, and church writings and traditions,” orthodox religious courts, which were preferred by the Orthodox Christian population, “handed out penalties such as imprisonment, fines, along with denial of the sacraments and excommunication.” The Greek War of Independence (1821–1831) and the creation of an independent Greek state in 1832 significantly undermined the prestige and power of the “Orthodox ecumenical patriarch in Istanbul,” effectively ending “the special relationship that had existed between the Greek Orthodox Church and the sultan.”

  SERBIAN ORTHODOX CHURCH

  At the time of the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople in 1453, there were two other autocephalous churches in existence: in Peć (Hungarian: Pécs), for the Serbs, and in Ohrid, for the Bulgarians. As the power of the Orthodox Church in Istanbul —backed and supported by the Ottoman government — increased, the authority and influence of the Serbian and Bulgarian churches waned, allowing the patriarch to secure their abolition in 1463. Serbian and Bulgarian bishops were replaced by Greek priests, who were dispatched by the patriarch from Istanbul. This policy ignited deep resentment among the local clerical establishment and the native population, who would later accuse the Greek clergy of trying to assimilate them by banning Serbian and Bulgarian liturgy and imposing Greek language and culture.

  The Serbian people, who had inhabited vast areas in modern-day southern Hungary, Kosovo, Serbia, Montenegro, Bosnia-Herzegovina, and Croatia, were unified under a single institution, namely the Serbian Orthodox Church, and its religious hierarchy, which constituted an important segment of the Serbian elite. Established in 1219 as an autocephalous member of the Orthodox communion, the Serbian Orthodox Church followed the traditions of Orthodox Christianity but was not subordinate to an external patriarch, such as the ecumenical patriarch in Istanbul. Serbian Orthodox religious texts were written in the old Serbian-Slavonic language, in which services were also conducted.

  The Serbian state established by the Nemanjić dynasty in the 12th century reached the zenith of its power under Stephen Dušan (1331–1355), who elevated the Serbian Orthodox Church “to the rank of patriarchate with its seat in Peć.” Though the Serbian prince Lazar (1371–1389) was defeated and killed at the battle of Kosovo Polje in 1389, the Serbs resisted direct Ottoman rule for decades before they were fully conquered in 1459. The memory of the defeat and martyrdom of Serbia’s last independent monarch was, however, preserved by the Serbian Orthodox Church. During long centuries of Ottoman occupation, the Patriarchate of Peć “felt itself the heir to the medieval Serbian kingdom and was well aware of its national mission.” The church referred to lands under its ecclesiastical jurisdiction as “Serbian Lands” despite the varying religious and ethnic characters the territories exhibited. In this manner, the Serbian Orthodox church became the repository of the national ideal and kept alive in the minds of the Serbian faithful their unique identity and glorious past. Through their membership and participation in their church, the Serbian people preserved their religion, as well as their language and historical identity, which distinguished them from their neighbors such as the Hungarians and Albanians.

  To appease the Serbs, Süleyman the Magnificent restored the Serbian Patriarchate in 1557 and appointed a relative of his grand vizier, Sokollu Mehmed Paşa (Mehmed Paşa Sokolović), as the patriarch. This restoration played an important role in safeguarding the Serbian national and cultural identity under a unified religious authority. During the Long War of 1593–1606, the Ottoman war against the Holy League (1683–1699), and the Habsburg-Ottoman wars of 1716–1718, 1736–1739, 1788–1791, however, the Serbs “took an active part as opponents of the Ottomans” and “suffered severe consequences.” One result was that the Ottoman government abolished the Serbian patriarchate in 1766 and placed it under the jurisdiction of the Ecumenical Patriarch of Istanbul, igniting strong anti-Greek sentiment among the Serbs, who resented the increasing power of Greek bishops. The resistance of Serbian churches to Ottoman rule led to Serbian Orthodoxy becoming inextricably linked with Serbian national identity and the new autonomous Serbian principality that emerged after the first Serbian national uprising (1804–1813) led by George Petrović or Karageorge (Karadjordje). The Serbian Orthodox Church finally regained its status as an autocephalous church in 1879, a year after Serbia gained its full independence.

  BULGARIAN ORTHODOX CHURCH

  In A.D. 679, “a small tribe of Proto-Bulgars” arrived in the Balkans under the leadership of their khan, Asparukh, and settled in “an area near the mouth of the Danube.” These Proto-Bulgars, who were originally a Turkic/Turanian people from Central Asia and who “had once inhabited an area between the Sea of Azov and Kuban,” entered “into an alliance with the Slovanic tribes” who had already settled in southeast Europe in the 6th and 7th centuries, and “a Slavo-Bulgar state was set up, in which, in spite of the numerical superiority of the Slavs, the Proto-Bulgars provided the leadership.” By the time the Bulgarian ruler Khan Boris Michael I (867–889) adopted Christianity, “the Proto-Bulgars had been completely absorbed by the more numerous Slavs.” The “reign of Boris’s son, Simeon (893–927)” has been generally recognized “as the Go
lden Age of Bulgarian literature.” It also marks “the zenith of Bulgaria’s territorial expansion” when the country’s frontiers “stretched from the Black Sea to the Adriatic, embracing most of Serbia, Albania and Southern Macedonia.” The first Bulgarian empire elevated the Bulgarian church into a patriarchate in 927. As in Serbia, the Bulgarian Orthodox Church played a central role in preserving the Slavonic liturgy and the Bulgarian language and history. Although their country came under Byzantine rule in 1018, the Bulgarians managed to regain their independence in 1185 and established the second Bulgarian empire (czardom), which granted the Bulgarian Church “the rank of patriarchate again” in 1235. The power of the Bulgarian state, however, waned soon after, and by the end of the 14th century, the territory of the empire had fallen into the hands of rival nobles and feudal lords who were ultimately manipulated and conquered by the Ottoman Turks. On the eve of the Ottoman conquest, “the Second Bulgarian Empire had split into three more or less independent States.” The Ottomans captured Plovdiv (Philippopolis) in 1363 and Sofia in 1385. The conquest of Turnovo in 1393 and Vidin in 1398 by Bayezid I brought any hope of Bulgarian independence to an end. The Bulgarian territory was divided into the three sancaks, or administrative units, of Vidin, Nicopolois, and Silistria, each governed by a sancak bey. Though the Ottomans did not force the Christian population to renounce and abandon their religion, a large number of Bulgarians, particularly in the Rhodopes, converted to Islam. Today, these Muslim Bulgarians or Pomaks constitute the second-largest population group in Bulgaria.