by David Jacobs
Finally, Mehmet solidified the power of the sultan, restricted the power of a potentially competitive aristocracy, and helped to prevent the possibility of a popular uprising by strengthening the institution known as the Janissaries.
The Janissaries were a corps that served the sultan as a civil service as well as a military guard. Children born of Christian parents, especially those living in the Balkans, filled their ranks. Muslims would order a child to be taken from his family, converted to Islam, and raised in the medreses with special privileges and free education. The child learned the fundamentals of warfare, religion, and government; above all else, he showed allegiance to no one but the sultan. Though not properly an aristocracy, the Janissaries did become a classless arm of the power structure. Moreover, the strict education of the conscripted young boys taught them to take the ethics of the Muslim religion much more seriously than did the general population. The result was a fraternity of extremely polite, self-controlled, thrifty, and courageous youths who did not drink, who had excessive habits of cleanliness, and who were prepared to lay down their lives for their religion or state.
By the early 1500s, guarded by the Janissaries, the Golden Horn hosted the comings and goings of ships of all nations, and the hills behind it were busy with commercial and community activities. Istanbul was a prosperous, cosmopolitan city; the orderliness of its government, its traditions, and its beautiful location made an atmosphere conducive to rapid and exciting development. All that was needed was an ambitious and grandiose leader to bring it to life.
Such a leader became sultan in 1520. His name was Suleiman, and he would earn quickly the designation of “the Magnificent.” He conquered Rhodes in 1522 and controlled the eastern Mediterranean. He took much of Hungary and threatened all of central Europe by mid-decade. His raids into the West extended across North Africa; he took southern Arabia, and in the 1550s, drove deep into Persia. He unsuccessfully besieged Vienna, attempted to disrupt the Portuguese fleet in the Indian Ocean, and raided Malta. That he did not always seize and occupy his targets did not mean that his foes defeated him. Seizure and occupation were not always his style. He sometimes preferred simply to keep all his enemies off balance while strengthening his rule in his own territory. He preferred the quick strike to the prolonged siege, and he preferred loot to territory.
Suleiman continuously entered, departed from, and reentered Istanbul with great pomp, on his way to or from some monumental battle. It was not unusual for him to bring whole armies home with him for the people of his capital to see. An Englishman, Anthony Jenkinson, once witnessed and recorded one of Suleiman’s processions on his way to battle:
There marched before the Grand Signior, otherwise called the Great Turke [Suleiman], 6,000 . . . light horsemen, very braue, clothed all in scarlet.”
After marched 10,000 men, called Nortans, which be tributaries to ye Great Turke, clothed all in yellow veluet and hats of the same, of the Tartarie fashion, two foote long, with a great robe of the same colour about their foreheads. . . .
After them marched foure Captaines, men of armes, called in Turkish Samaques, clothed all foure in crimson veluet, euerey one hauing vnder his banner twelue thousand men of armes, well armed with their morrions [helmets] vpon their heads, marching in good order, with a short weapon by their sides. . . .
After came sixteen thousand Janizaries, called the slaves of the Grand Signoir, all afoote, . . . in violet silk. . . .
After this there came 1,000 pages of honour, all clothed in cloth of golde, the halfe of them carrying harquebushes, and the other halfe Turkish bowes, with their trusses of arrowes, marching in good order. . . .
After them came seuen pages of honour in cloth of siluer, vpon seuen white horses, which horses were couered with cloth of siluer, all embrodered and garnished with pretious stones, emerauds, diamonds, and rubies most richly.
After them also came six more pages of honour, clothed in cloth of golde, euery one hauing his bowe in his hand, and his fawchine of the Turks fashion by his side.
Immediately after them came the Great Turke himselfe, with great pompe & magnificence, vsing in his countenance and gesture a wonderful maiestie, hauing onely on each side of his person one page clothed with cloth of golde: he himselfe was mounted vpon a goodly white horse, adorned with a robe of cloth of golde, embrodered moste richly with the most pretious stones, and vpon his head a goodly white tuck, containing in length by estimation fifteene yards, which was of silke and linen wouen together . . . and in the toppe of his crowne a little pinnach of white Ostrich feathers, and his horse most richly apparelled in all points correspondent to the same.
After him followed six goodly young Ladies, mounted vpon fine white hackneis, clothed in cloth of siluer, which were of the fashion of mens garments, embrodered very richly with pearle, and pretious stones, and had vpon their heades caps of Goldsmiths worke, hauing great flackets of heare hanging out on each side, died red as blood, and the mailes of their fingers died of the same colour, euery of them hauing two eunuches on each side. . . .
After marched the Great Basha, cheefe conductor of the whole armie, clothed with a robe of Dollymant crimson, and vpon the same another short garment very rich, and about him fiftie Janizaries afoote, of his owne gard, all clothed in crimson velvet. . . .
Then after ensued three other Bashas, with slaues about them, being afoote, to the number of three thousand men. . . .
The camels which carried munition and victuals for the said armie, were in number 200,000.
The sultan was a free-spending patron of the arts who attracted men of talent and ambition from everywhere in Islam. Poets, scholars, artists, architects, religious leaders, and merchants converged on the city to take advantage of Suleiman’s generosity and to take part in the Muslim cultural boom.
It is revealing that two of the other most influential men in Istanbul during his reign were a poet and an architect. The poet, Baki, set the intellectual tone of the city after his friendship with the sultan began in 1555. Under his influence, it became a romantic place, filled with people who studied poetry and literature as a recreation, with lovers who began writing rhymes to each other as a basic part of courtship. The architect, Sinan, rebuilt almost every important building in the city and added 312 new structures. One of his masterpieces was the Suleimaniye, a mosque of matchless splendor.
Suleiman died in 1566 while fighting in Hungary. They buried his heart on the battlefield and took his body back to Istanbul for burial in the Suleimaniye Mosque. His friend Baki eulogized him:
The day is born. Will not the lord of the world awake from sleep?
Does he not show himself from his pavilion, that is like the heavens?
Our eyes are on the roads, no word has come
From the place where lies the dust beneath the threshold of his majesty.
The colour of his cheek has gone, he lies dry-lipped
Like a fallen rose apart from the rose water.
Sometimes the Emperor of the skies hides behind the curtain of cloud,
When he remembers your grace he sweats with shame from the cloud.
This is my prayer: all those who do not weep for you,
Young and old, may their tears be buried in the ground.
May the sun burn and blaze with the fire of your parting;
In grief for you, let him dress in black weeds of cloud.
Weeping tears of blood as it recalls your skill,
May your sword plunge into the ground from its scabbard.
May the pen tear its collar in grief for you,
The standard rend its shirt in affliction.
Under Suleiman and his immediate successors, the educational system in Istanbul was among the best in the world. Even the smallest villages in the empire provided schools to give every boy a solid introduction to grammar, syntax, logic, metaphysics, philology, science, rhetoric, geometry, and astronomy. It was expected that all young people with social status could write poetry, compose love songs, or
discuss theology.
The good manners and excellent vocabulary of the citizens, especially the young people, usually impressed Western visitors to Ottoman Istanbul. Many observers also commented on the graveness and dignity of the people. Everyone seemed so serious at all times. The children were not even boisterous, and the young seldom were rowdy. There was very little crime, and everyone appeared to live with great restraint. The discipline imposed by the Muslim religion had a great deal to do with it. But the efficiency of the bureaucracy - which created a city where almost everything operated smoothly and the unexpected seldom happened - may have been responsible, too. It also is possible that the Westerners mistook contemplativeness and serenity for somberness.
In some respects, Istanbul under the Ottoman resembled Constantinople. The architecture was rather Oriental in character; Byzantine architecture had grown increasingly Oriental after the time of Justinian. The rich still lived in townhouses high on the hills and in villas along the seashore. The contrast between rich and poor still was striking, as it was in cities all over the world. One Western visitor did report, however, that he found the Greek peasantry of the empire to be the best-housed, best-fed, and best-clothed peasants he ever had seen.
Guilds prospered in Istanbul. In the seventeenth century, there were more than 700 professional organizations registered. There were separate guilds for carpenters, cabinetmakers, and woodcarvers. The guilds were quite competitive and very often sought the same men for membership. During a procession on a seventeenth-century equivalent of the modern Labor Day, a fight broke out between rival guilds that lasted three full days.
Istanbul consisted of four administrative units: the center of old Constantinople; Galata across the Golden Horn; Eyüp, at the northern end of the Horn beyond the city gates; and Üsküdar, across the Bosporus. Istanbul proper contained the Topkapi Palace, the old Hippodrome Square with Hagia Sophia, Mehmet’s palace, and the Suleimaniye, and a great bazaar. Galata, which long had been a favorite stopping place for Genoese merchants and sailors, remained a European-oriented commercial and diplomatic center. The area featured the beautiful residences of the European diplomats, an Ottoman school, and a convent for dancing dervishes. (The dervishes were a religious order that believed that certain rituals would produce a profound trance through which one could achieve direct contact with Allah.) Üsküdar, which had been a Muslim city before Constantinople fell to the Turks, was a religious center with several mosques and convents - one for howling dervishes.
A fleet along the coast and a military patrol on land provided defense for Istanbul. A separate bureaucracy with separate leadership ran each of the four districts. One official was responsible for maintaining morality and decency in each of the districts; he also was supposed to inspect the quality of goods on sale and to regulate prices.
One of the great controversies of Ottoman Istanbul was whether citizens could consume liquor, smoke tobacco, or drink coffee. During most reigns, there were laws against their sale, but the citizens generally ignored the laws. In 1633, Sultan Murad IV not only decided to enforce the law but also had several coffee-drinkers and smokers executed.
None of Suleiman’s successors equaled his strong and magnificent reign. The empire that he had built, however, and its capital, were solid enough to endure and prosper for a century after his death. In all that time, Istanbul was free from wars and internal uprisings.
But trouble was coming, though slowly. It came in part from Europe and in part from within.
An extraordinary period of international trade had begun with the Renaissance. It was, of course, the search for new trade routes to the East that had led to the discovery of the New World in 1492. But the importance of the old trade routes never was completely forgotten. Nor was the importance of Istanbul ignored. It still was the city at the center of the world. But no one bothered Istanbul in the sixteenth century because the strength of the Ottoman Turks was too great.
In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, however, the Ottomans’ internal decline allowed the Europeans to begin making slight inroads into the Turkish Empire. Giant Russia, in particular, was a threat from across the Black Sea. The sultans were kept busy asserting their strength against European intrusions in the Mediterranean, and against the nationalistic tides in Greece and the Balkans, and had little time for the glorification of Istanbul. Midway through the 1600s, the sultans no longer concerned themselves with public affairs and concentrated solely on military matters. In their place, appointed viziers (high officials) took charge of the city and the affairs of the province.
Under the viziers, the government became a game of intrigue, corruption, and self-service. There was discontent in the neglected provinces. Viziers began to use taxes collected in Istanbul more for the maintenance of harems and courts than for the public good.
Early in the nineteenth century, the weak, corrupt Ottoman Empire began to split at its seams. Even the Janissaries, whose unity and fidelity to the sultan had been a key to the sultans’ strength, began to divide - old against young, reformer against antireformer. In 1807, for example, the older janissaries dealt with the reforming spirit of Sultan Selim III by assassinating him.
Meanwhile, the Greek subjects in the empire made plans to regain their freedom and eventually to retake Constantinople. In 1821, a rebellion by the Greeks in Rumania, a Turkish tributary, was the first in a chain of Greek rebellions throughout the western parts of the empire. Although the sultan promptly crushed the Rumanian rebellion, others sprang up. When some Greeks in Peloponnesus attacked and massacred every Turk they could find, Sultan Mahmud II responded by executing the Orthodox patriarch in Istanbul. Russia claimed that the execution was an insult to the Orthodox Church and severed relations with Turkey. The sultan retook the Greek peninsula, but Russia, France, and England - all three interested in securing Mediterranean sailing rights - formed an alliance to help the Greek nationalists. Confronted with this display of power, Sultan Mahmud II agreed to negotiate a settlement with the Greeks. The resulting Treaty of Adrianople in 1829 freed the western Greeks and established a Greek kingdom on the mainland.
Mahmud II already had decided to become a reformer, although the method he chose was very strange. In 1826, he ordered the executions of the majority of the Janissaries to demonstrate that he was off to a fresh start. He hired French and Prussian instructors to train his new army. Establishing a land-reform program in the provinces and increasing individual rights, the sultan limited the power of the viziers, discarded the turban as the national headgear, and replaced it with the more youthful fez. His son Abdul Medjid, who became sultan in 1839 and ruled until 1861, continued the reforms, lowering taxes, establishing a council of justice, abolishing capital punishment without a trial, and instituting universal laws and penalties.
For a while, the reforms helped to quiet the internal dissension. Meanwhile, England and France began to regard the Turkish Empire as a European power, because its basic commerce involved importing and exporting goods between East and West. In trying to maintain a balance of power in Europe, the French and English even sided with Turkey in its next dispute with Russia. In the Crimean War, which arose from that dispute, Turkey fought alongside its European allies.
The empires commanded from the city behind the Golden Horn never had done well looking to the West. But in the nineteenth century, with the West undergoing an Industrial Revolution, which the Turks feared but did not fully understand, they allowed themselves to be drawn into European political situations. It would prove to be a fatal mistake.
The fabric of the Ottoman Empire always had been loosely woven. Regionalism, religion, and politics long had divided the various subjects of the realm. It was only the strength of the sultan - embodied in his military forces - that had held the empire together.
In the last quarter of the nineteenth century, the fabric was wearing thin. The sultan during that period was Abdul Hamid II, who became ruler in 1876. In many ways, he was the last sultan sufficiently po
werful to effect the radical changes that might have kept the empire from disintegrating. Unfortunately, Abdul Hamid himself personified the contradictions that were destroying the empire. He seemed to acknowledge the need for reform to proceed. For example, he endorsed a new constitution that provided certain democratic guarantees to the individual citizen and called for an elected parliament. But within a year, he dissolved the parliament, suspended the constitution, and exiled or jailed the liberals who had pressed the reforms. Shortly thereafter, he created a secret police to crush free debate, and he established a despotic one-man rule. He was able to deal ruthlessly with the opposition because the opposition was divided.
Among the reform elements in the empire were groups that wanted a new government identified with the Muslim religion, other groups that favored a pluralistic state with many religious constituencies, and still others that conceived of a redrawn empire consisting of all peoples who spoke a Turkish dialect. Abdul Hamid II used this division to retain control. By granting special privileges and concessions, he managed to keep the opposition divided.
The West took advantage of the internal troubles of the sultan. Russia, for instance, assumed the role of protector of the Turks’ Balkan provinces. When the constitution of 1876 failed to grant the Balkan provinces the degree of self-government that they demanded, the Russians sent an army through the Balkans and a Black Sea fleet down the Bosporus. The result was the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-78. Despite fierce Turkish resistance, the Russians advanced steadily to the walls of Istanbul. Just as they were about to seize the city, the English - fearful of growing Russian strength in the Near East - sent a fleet through the Dardanelles and ordered the Russians to halt. At the subsequent Berlin Conference, the European powers proceeded to carve up the Ottoman Empire. After Russia and Great Britain had claimed a number of Turkish provinces for themselves, they created several new independent states in the Balkans, reducing Ottoman strength in Europe.
