VII
THE DECLINE OF THE OTTOMANS
In the expansion of their empire the main characteristic of the Ottomans had been fidelity to their tribal origin in Asia and to their religion; they showed little elasticity in modifying their system of government to new conditions, but they did recognize the necessity of progress. After their conversion to Mohammedanism their supreme guide was the “cheriat,” under which term is signified the religious law of orthodox Moslems in the threefold division of Koran, Sunna, and the Sentences. In addition to this, there were the various official interpretations from the Sultan’s hand in the application of the law called the Kanoun. So much importance had this aspect of the Sultan’s functions that Souliman is remembered under his title of El Kanouni, that is, as a Turkish Justinian, rather than as a great military leader.
As head of the Empire, the Sultan’s various titles are significant of the progressive stages of Ottoman development from a tribe to a great world power. The sovereign was still called Khan, as the head of a Turkish nomadic horde. When the Turks were converted to Islam, there was first added the title emir, an Arabic word, Chief of Believers; then came the name sultan, king; after the conquest of Constantinople, the Persian term padishah, king of kings, came into use. As we have seen, the conquest of Syria, of Egypt, and Arabia, made the Sultan defender of the holy cities and khalif.
After the conquest of the capital of the Cæsars, the influence of Byzantine traditions introduced a rigid system of court ceremonial; the days of patriarchal simplicity were closed; the person of the Sultan was raised in dignity. The change is clearly indicated in an edict by Mohammed: “It is not my will that anyone should eat with my imperial majesty; our ancestors were wont to eat with their ministers, but I have abolished it.” The influence of the Byzantine bureaucratic hierarchy can be traced in the method of Ottoman administration; even in small details the permanence of the Roman imperial tradition is noteworthy. The sovereign’s documents were, like those of his Greek predecessors, written in gold, purple, and azure. His letters of victory are but a continuation of the “litterae laureatae,” while the bakkchich given to the Janitschars is but a reminiscence of the Imperial donation.
But actual assimilation between the Turks and their subject peoples was prevented by difference of religion. Racial differences made no distinction between Greeks, Albanians, Slavs, and Roumanians; they were all orthodox Christians, while the same people, if they became converts to Islam, were turned into Ottomans. The two types of religious allegiance were mutually irreconcilable. The peculiarity of Ottoman absolutism is to be found in the exclusion from governmental offices both of the free Moslem and the free Christian subjects of the Empire. The administration from top to bottom was in the hands of slaves, and these slaves were largely recruited from the children of Christian families of the subject races, who were constantly exposed to a detestable and unnatural form of oppression. The conquered populations were ruled despotically by men of Christian birth, who, during their initiation into slavery, had become Moslems. The famous Admiral Dragut was the son of a Christian of Asia Minor. Many of the famous generals were taken from Christian Albanian, Bosnian, and Dalmatian families. Of forty-eight grand viziers, only twelve were of Moslem birth.
Many Christians also became renegades, since an easy road to fortune was opened to them in this way. The hardy, adventurous, and less scrupulous elements of the conquered races accepted the religion of their conquerors; even a Paleologus, one of the last descendants of the imperial line, became a Moslem. There were conversions on a large scale, accomplished without special pressure among the landed proprietors, who were warriors by tradition, and who refused to endure the restrictions placed upon them by their religious profession.
The absolutism of the Sultan allowed no rival in any of the religious dignitaries of Islam. Even the Cheikh-ul-Islam had no authority over the Sultan; though the supreme ecclesiastical dignitary, he was only an authoritative expert in the law, the head of the body of oulemas, whose opinions could, if necessary, be passed over. At the same time the Cheikh-ul-Islam’s advice carried weight, and we sometimes hear of ambassadors being protected from the rage of the Sultan by his intervention. Legally, the Sultan was altogether above the law, or, rather, outside of it; he had the right to execute his brothers and children “if the peace of the world required it.”
While women in the household of the Padishah played no conspicuous rôle, there were exceptions to the rule. Under the institution of the harem the Sultan’s wives were slaves, and frequently domestic discords that had an influence on the destiny of the Empire were the result of harem intrigues. Often the sons of the Sultan were children of different parents. It was remarked in the time of Souliman that one of his wives, Roxelane, perhaps a Russian, acquired great ascendency over him. The Venetian ambassador reported that Souliman, contrary to the custom of his ancestors, had taken her for his legitimate wife. She became practically an empress, and was responsible for the Sultan’s policy on several occasions. The war with Persia and the undermining of the power of the grand vizier were due to her.
As to the army, it kept the basis marked out for it by Ala-ed-Din. The élite body of the Janitschars still formed the chief protection of the Sultan’s power. From the regular tribute of blood only Constantinople, Athens, Rhodes, a few other islands, and the Mainotes, the Laconian mountaineers, were exempted. Every five years the officers of the Sultan passed through the villages where children of the peasants were collected, and each fifth one was taken. Oftentimes Christian families were glad to pay the exaction even before the tax collectors appeared. Many of the members of the corps preserved traces of their early faith, and so drank wine without scruple. The solidarity of the body was maintained by exceptional privileges; their pay was large; they had a special share of the booty, or regular donatives, and the assurance of a pension for old age. The Janitschars were forbidden to marry or to engage in any trade. They could be punished only by their own officers, and even the grand vizier had no jurisdiction over them. In the time of Souliman they numbered 12,000, and as their numbers increased their turbulence grew. Selim attempted to meet this difficulty by incorporating in their body 7000 of the palace servants, and by dividing the command.
In the government of the subject peoples no uniformity was observed. The inhabitants of mountain regions, the Albanians, the Montenegrins, the Mainotes, the dwellers on Mt. Libanus, were protected from tyrannical actions. Where the country was level, there were no bounds to the barbarity of Turkish governmental methods. The vassal states, such as Transylvania, Moldavia, Georgia, were still ruled by native princes. But under Ottoman rule, in spite of the constant wars and the attendant anarchic conditions, there was worked out a crude kind of unity throughout the Empire. At least, with an Ottoman overlord, there prevailed a condition of internal peace between the various portions of the Empire, that gave stability to commercial relations and rendered communication easy between distant parts. Religious persecution in the sense in which it had existed in the Byzantine Empire, and in the Eastern domains of the Italian municipalities, was now unknown. At Rhodes the Greeks preferred the new régime to the rule of the Knights Hospitalers, who, as Latins, had showed no sympathy with the Orthodox Church. In Crete and Greece the Turks were more popular as masters than the Venetians; and the Servians, Hungarians, and Roumanians preferred Moslem control to that of Catholic Austria.