[Discussion] bk rev.: Colin Imber. The Ottoman Empire, 1300-1650

[sule tarakcioglu]

Colin Imber. The Ottoman Empire, 1300-1650: The Structure of Power. New
York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002. xiv + 405 pp. Maps, notes, glossary,
sources quoted, bibliography, index. $27.95 (cloth), ISBN 0-333-61386-4;
$19.95 (paper), ISBN 0-333-61387-2.
*Reviewed by:* Renee Worringer, School of History, Philosophy, Religion,
and Classics, University of Queensland.
*Published by:* H-Levant <http://www.h-net.msu.edu/%7Elevant/> (May, 2004=
)

Until recently the Ottoman historian was at a marked disadvantage when
teaching an undergraduate course on the Ottoman Empire's rise and
interactions with Europe. There was an absence of suitable general
histories explaining the particulars behind the emergence of the Ottoman
principality on the Byzantine-Seljuk frontier; its subsequent expansion
into the Balkans and into Anatolia, culminating in the Ottoman conquest
of Constantinople in 1453; and ultimately Ottoman ascension to the
status of world empire. As a result, the Ottomanist was forced to
assemble myriad collections of book chapters, articles, and essays from
different publications into an accessible form. At times the chronology
of events leading to the establishment of the Ottoman state was lost in
the scramble to collect materials explicating the minutiae of Ottoman
governing structures and dynastic power. Other times, historiographical
debates and the effects of earlier Western and Turkish nationalist
approaches to Ottoman history had to be ignored to convey basic
information about what happened when, what battles were fought, or what
territories were annexed and by which reigning Ottoman Sultan. Several
long-overdue monographs have now been published in an attempt to respond
to this deficiency in the field. In addition to Daniel Goffman's dynamic
and engaging The Ottoman Empire and Early Modern Europe (2002), the
scholar now has Colin Imber's very readable and well-organized The
Ottoman Empire, 1300-1650: The Structure of Power (2002) at his or her
disposal.

Imber describes his task very clearly in his introduction: to write a
general Ottoman history that would "serve to introduce the
non-specialist to the field, and to provide a context which makes it
possible to read the specialist works" (pp. xiii). In addition, he hopes
to give Ottomanist specialists themselves "a straightforward chronology
of events which has hitherto been lacking" (pp. xiii-xiv). Thus, the
first quarter of the book is devoted to a useful, if densely packed,
chronological summary of Ottoman historical development that draws on
Imber's previous scholarship on the early Ottoman period (for example,
his The Ottoman Empire 1300-1461 [1990]). His intimate knowledge of
original sources and the use of linguistic interpretation result in a
reexamination of the accuracy and historical meaning of terms such as
ghazi (pp. 120-121). What could have been merely a dry list of the many
Ottoman conquests and defeats over time is instead a vibrant discussion
of the multiculturalism of the Ottoman Empire. It describes the Empire
from its inception as a heterodox frontier society taking advantage of
political rivalries among Byzantine claimants to the throne, local
Balkan rulers, and other Muslim principalities in Anatolia--and whose
warrior-leaders were Turkish and nominally Muslim--to its later form as
an imperial state influenced by the historical legacies of
Turco-Mongolian, Perso-Islamic and Byzantine traditions, which
incorporated aspects of these into a new administrative apparatus. In
this chronology he delves into topics such as the political nature of
the Ottoman elite as a predominantly Muslim and Turkish-speaking class
whose origins were often non-Muslim and non-Turkish (p. 3); Ottoman s or
deportation policies towards various groups in the Empire as a
management strategy designed to create stability in the realm; and the
violent attempt by Timur to reassert Islamized Mongol overlordship and
governing patterns in Anatolia through the defeat of Ottoman forces at
Ankara in 1402, resulting in the capture and subsequent death of Sultan
Bayezid, the division of his territory among his sons, and Ottoman civil
war lasting two roughly decades. Imber presents the Ottoman reemergence
after this interregnum in a subsection titled "Conquest and
Consolidation, 1451-1512," a period in which the Ottoman state
definitively acquired an imperial capital after its siege of
Constantinople, expanded its territories, and put in place its choices
for administrative organization as an expression of power (pp. 27-28).
 From here the reader embarks upon a detailed account of Ottoman
expansion further into Europe and the Mediterranean where it warred with
Christian land and naval powers, as well as toward the Islamic
heartlands, encountering the Mamluk realm centered in Cairo, and the
Turcoman kizilbas tribes on its Eastern flank, the clients of the
fledgling Safavid state on its Iranian frontier. Imber argues, with
clearly presented evidence, that in this era the Ottomans had to deal
simultaneously with pretenders to the throne and rebellions in
provincial areas as it undertook a campaign to improve military
technology. What results in the sixteenth century is "the Apogee of
Empire, 1512-1590" (p. 44), during which Ottoman Sultan Selim I defeated
the Safavids (1514) and subdued the Mamluk Sultanate (1517). These
successes launched what would shortly become his heir S=FCleyman the
Magnificent's (r. 1520-1566) role as world emperor. In addition to
S=FCleyman's campaigns, that essentially converted the Mediterranean into
an Ottoman lake and allowed the Sultan to rival the Habsburg dynast as
Holy Roman Emperor, his father's "acquisition from the Mamluks of the
three Holy Cities of Mecca, Medina, and Jerusalem gave the Ottoman
Sultan primacy among Islamic monarchs, and bolstered his claim to be the
sole defender of Islamic orthodoxy against Safavid heresy" (p. 48). The
chronology highlights Ottoman achievements during S=FCleyman's
forty-six-year reign and the years immediately following.

The next subsection, "The Ottoman Times of Trouble, 1590-1650," rounds
out the chapter with a discussion of multiple Ottoman crises starting at
the turn of the seventeenth century. These were, first, military in
nature and then, in later decades, dynastic, before order and territory
were temporarily restored under Sultan Murad IV (d. 1640). Imber
purports to end the chronology in 1650, which he views as "the close of
a period of crisis which brought an end to the Empire's expansion and
brought changes to the structure of its institutions" (p. xiv). The last
paragraphs summarize the accession to the throne of the child-Sultan
Mehmed IV (r. 1648-1687), whose grandmother K=F6sem and mother Turhan wer=
e
engaged in the dynastic politics of what was previously known in
pejorative terms as "The Sultanate of the Women." It is remarked that
Turhan's surrender of power to the astute K=F6pr=FCl=FC Grand Vezirs did =
not
stave off the eventual downturn in Ottoman fortunes marked by the second
failed siege of Vienna in 1683 and the Treaty of Carlowitz (1699) that
was to officially recognize such losses.

Imber then delves into the specifics of Ottoman structures of power in
subsequent chapters. In chapter 2, Imber explores the Ottoman dynasty,
reproductive politics, and the evolution of succession practices,
integrating many of the findings of Leslie Peirce's specialized work on
the Ottoman imperial period in her The Imperial Harem: Women and
Sovereignty in the Ottoman Empire (1993), while incorporating his own
knowledge of early Ottoman marital alliances, the succession struggles
between sons, the implementation of a policy of royal fratricide, and
allegiances with political figures inside and outside the dynasty to
elevate power potential among rival heirs apparent. His presentation of
the development of traditions to legitimate the ascension and continuing
reign of a Sultan, whether Turco-Mongolian and Islamic attempts to link
the Ottomans genealogically with their Oghuz forefathers of "Abrahamic"
extraction (pp. 122-124) or the increased usage of Ottoman titulature
reflecting the Sultan's capacity as the inheritor of Roman, Persian,
Islamic, and Mongol civilizations (pp. 125-127) stimulates the interest
of students and historians of Europe and the Islamic world alike.

Chapter 3 discusses recruitment into the Ottoman ruling apparatus, the
origins and functioning of the devshirme levy that produced "Slaves of
the Porte" and the Janissary corps. Chapter 4 describes the Palace
system, its physical layout in different periods, the arrangement of the
dynastic household, its servants and their education, and an in-depth
review of the development, composition, and duties of the various
offices of the Ottoman Imperial Council. Chapter 5 compares the
administration and personnel of revenue-generating provincial
territories. Imber emphasizes Ottoman flexibility and variability in
manipulating these arrangements to suit both local circumstances and the
state's economic or strategic needs at a given time. Additionally, the
author clarifies Ottoman terminology denoting the various categories of
landholding. Imber traces pre-Ottoman practices influencing the
allocation of timars and the timar-holder's military responsibilities to
the imperial center through a reading of original Ottoman regulations
and decrees. As the Empire matured into an imperial feudal bureaucracy
and provincial postings became shorter-term appointments in the
late-sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, a system of civilian tax
farming developed to meet the fiscal requirements of the Ottoman
treasury. Imber describes this process.

Chapter 6 provides thorough insight into the Ottoman understanding and
application of Islamic or Shari'ah law and the promulgation of its
secular counterpart, or kanun. In addition, he describes the possible
career paths and duties of members of the Ottoman religious class, the
ulema, comprising teachers, judges, and muftis. Chapters 7 and 8 review
the development of the Ottoman military from raiding bowmen on horseback
to an organized cavalry, the Janissary corps, the use of troops, and
Ottoman siegecraft. Shipbuilding and the formation of a navy accompanied
Ottoman assertion of power in the Mediterranean and the Indian Ocean.
Advancements in weaponry such as the adoption of cannon and firearm
technology logically affected Ottoman military strategy. Continued
improvements in warfare technology among the Ottomans' opponents would
eventually serve to eclipse the Empire's strength in battle. All of
these elements are described as well.

The book contains five maps accessible to the unfamiliar reader: the
Anatolian principalities later destroyed and/or incorporated into the
Ottoman state; the expansion of the Ottoman state between the late 1300s
and the end of the sixteenth century; the Ottoman Empire in the
seventeenth century; the Ottoman-Habsburg frontier in the Balkans circa
1600; and Ottoman provinces, circa the sixteenth century. A useful
glossary appears at the back of the book; a bibliography, nicely
organized according to the chapter topics outlined above, facilitates
research for newcomers to the field. Noticeably lacking in this
monograph, however, is an Ottoman family tree portraying the extended
dynasty similar to the diagrams in Peirce's study of dynastic politics
or in Donald Quataert's The Ottoman Empire, 1700-1922 (2000). For those
unfamiliar with the names of Ottoman Sultans and the time and length of
their respective reigns, the chronology of events might be difficult to
follow without such a basic reference tool. Future editions of this book
should include some form of dynastic map. Imber masterfully achieves the
task he sets out to do in his introduction, producing a comprehensive
overview of the Ottoman dynasty's rise and its ability to both project
and execute imperial power. He reminds his readers in the concluding
chapter that the Ottoman Sultan was repeatedly portrayed in early modern
European sources as the embodiment of absolutism (see Lucette Valensi's
Birth of the Despot: Venice and the Sublime Porte [1993]). Imber
reinterprets this oversimplification in light of certain checks on
dynastic power, whether in the early period through interactions with
provincial lords, or in later centuries, through the limitations imposed
upon Sultans by immutable Islamic law. Ottoman longevity is in part
attributed to the diffusion of political power among the Ottoman ruling
class and the viziers. As Sultans increasingly withdrew from their more
public roles as leaders in prayer and war, Imber notes, "the scribal
service continued to work, ensuring that the daily functions of
government such as taxation and the equipping of armies could continue
... the courts and the legal system continued to function and to keep
the confidence of the sultan's subjects in regulating their affairs" (p.
324). While some may argue that his approach neglects aspects of Ottoman
social and economic history, he addresses these issues in an
institutional framework, in a manner appropriate for a book designed to
explore "the Structure of Power."

Imber effectively sets a high standard for future work to be done by
scholars of the latter half of the Ottoman Empire's existence. For the
history student, he has provided a valuable educational tool. For the
specialist, this is a well-researched and coherent narrative of the
Ottoman rise to power based on original sources. He introduces some of
the historiographical debates within the field of Ottoman history
without overwhelming the historian who is unfamiliar with them. His
depth of knowledge assists in defining the field of Ottoman history
itself. This book is a must for anyone who teaches Ottoman history at
the undergraduate or graduate level; Ottomanists specializing in any
period should add this to their shelves as a fundamental text from which
to proceed into any further study of the Ottoman state apparatus and
Ottoman methods of rule.

Library of Congress Call Number: DR486 .I63 2002

Subjects:

    * Turkey--History--1288-1453.
    * Turkey--History--1453-1683.