Analysis of Ottoman Empire and Islamic Tradition by Norman Itzkowitz - Research Paper Example

251601 History Research Paper The purpose of this research paper is to provide an academic and educational evaluation of the book Ottoman Empire and Islamic Tradition by Norman Itzkowitz. When Norman Itzkowitz wrote the Ottoman Empire and Islamic Tradition he intended to provide his readers with a well focused overview of the rise and the subsequent decline of the Ottoman Empire from the fourteenth century through to the early decades of the twentieth century. Norman Itzkowitz throughout his well thought out book concisely evaluates the causes and the factors, which accelerated the rise and then the decline of the Ottoman Empire. In the Ottoman Empire and Islamic Tradition Norman Itzkowitz is keen to examine the links between politics, war, conquest, and religion played a significant role in the rise as well as the decline of the Ottoman Empire. As will be shown other authors and historians have had similar concepts and notions about both the rise and the decline of the Ottoman Empire. To a large extent Norman Itzkowitz s analysis of the origins and the rise of the Ottoman Empire is as well written, as it is succinct. Like other authors and historians NI* starts from the perspective that the Ottoman Empire began to emerge in the fourteenth century because the Ottoman Turks had a series of highly capable Sultans. Rulers that made the most of Ottoman Turk strengths as well as taking advantages of the weaknesses of the states and empires that surrounded them. Sometimes the enemies of the Ottoman Turks were only weakened for a short time yet still became part of the Ottoman Empire. In many respects the policies of the Ottoman Sultans were generally astute, which is more than can be said for the majority of the states and empires that they conquered during this period.1 Norman Itzkowitz points out that the rise of the Ottoman Empire was accelerated by the inability of their enemies and adversaries to unite against them upon a frequent enough basis, or indeed take the Ottoman Turk threat seriously. During the rise of the Ottoman Empire its Sultans fought wars against Muslim and Non-Muslim enemies, usually with a great deal of success. Norman Itzkowitz partly attributes the successful expansion down to the quality, as well as the power of the Ottoman army and later the Ottoman navy. Without highly effective armies and navies then the Ottoman Empire would probably never have been as large as it eventually became at its zenith. The Sultans of the Ottoman Empire at least during the expansion of the empire had the knack of attacking enemies when they were at their weakest and therefore their most vulnerable, for example the Byzantine Empire and the Mamluks in Egypt, Iraq, and Syria. The early chapters of the Norman Itzkowitz2 book analyse the rapid expansion and rise of the Ottoman Empire in the Middle East, Asia Minor, as well as in Central and Southern Europe. Itzkowitz contends like other authors and historians that the rapid expansion of the Janissary system was fundamental for the military successes of the Ottoman Turks in making such extensive territorial gains. The expanding Ottoman Empire certainly took consistent advantage of the divisions of its adversaries and enemies. For example the Byzantine Empire had been severely weakened by Christian rivals as well as Islamic attacks against it from the seventh century onwards. Just like the Ottoman Empire the Byzantine Empire declined over centuries rather than decades. In any event the Byzantine Empire might have offered greater resistance to the remorseless expansion of the Ottoman Empire had it been helped rather than severely hindered by the Christian powers of Western Europe, particularly the Fourth Crusade in 1204. The Fourth Crusade did a great deal to drastically weaken the Byzantine Empire, to the ultimate advantage of the Ottoman Turks.3 As one empire declined so another took its place. The Byzantine Empire was living on borrowed time, only the Mongol incursions and the Black Death kept Constantinople save in the thirteenth century. As the Byzantine Empire lost its most populous and productive provinces in the Balkans and Asia Minor it also lost its capacity to successfully resist the expanding Ottoman Empire. By 1453 only Constantinople itself was left, it was unable to withstand the siege cannons of the Ottoman Turks for very long.4 In 1453 the capture of Constantinople was at that stage the greatest military triumph of the Ottoman Turks. The fall of Constantinople was in many respects a direct result of the Christians of Western Europe failing to support the declining Byzantine Empire. However to prevent the capture of Constantinople would have taken a full-scale crusade, which nobody was prepared to undertake. The conquest of Constantinople gave the Ottoman Empire a gateway to further expansion in Central and Southern Europe.5 The successful conquest of Constantinople was as Norman Itzkowitz contends a turning point during the impressive expansion of the Ottoman Empire. The conquered Constantinople was renamed Istanbul and became the new capital of the Ottoman Empire. The acquisition of Istanbul greatly increased the resources as well as the wealth available to the Sultans of the Ottoman Empire. Istanbul was well placed for trading as well as strategic or military purposes. 6 It was not just trade and money that the Ottoman Empire gained from conquering the rump of the Byzantine Empire. The Ottoman Empire gained new subjects and non-Muslims who were liable to pay taxes and serve in the Ottoman army or navy. The Ottoman Sultans used Non-Muslim soldiers recruited from former provinces of the Byzantine Empire in their conquests of Islamic countries such as Egypt, Iraq, and Syria. Besides expanding their territories in the Middle East the Ottoman Turks also went on to make further conquests in Central, Eastern, and Southern Europe. Within two decades of the fall of Constantinople the Ottoman Empire had absorbed Serbia, Bosnia, and threatened Hungary alongside its Middle Eastern gains.7 The Ottoman Empire was by the beginning of the Sixteenth century the dominant power within Asia Minor, the Balkans, and also the Middle East. At that point only the Persians appeared to be both capable and willing to resist the impressive almost relentless territorial expansion of the Ottoman Empire.8 Under the Sultan Sulieman the Magnificent the Ottoman Turks completed the invasion of Hungary after comprehensively winning the Battle of Mohacs in 1526. The acquisition of Hungary meant that the Ottoman Empire was bordering the Austrian heartland of the Habsburg Emperors. The Habsburgs then began to take much greater notice of the Ottoman Empire and its threat to Habsburg territories.9 However the dynastic, political, and religious divisions of Western Europe aided the Ottoman Empire. The Habsburgs having to contend with the additional turmoil caused by the Protestant Reformation, not to mention the virtually continuous wars against France until 1559. Such was the animosity between the Habsburgs and the French, that the latter actually allied them to the Ottoman Empire. The Habsburgs did succeed in preventing the Ottoman Turks advancing beyond Hungary, except for two unsuccessful sieges of Vienna.10 After the death of Sulieman the Magnificent the Ottoman Empire very gradually began to decline in terms of its power and the vitality of its leadership. That decline was not immediately obvious despite a combined Christian fleet defeating the Ottoman navy off Lepanto in 1571. Most of the time the Western Europeans were too busy arguing with each other or fighting amongst themselves to pay much attention to the Ottoman Turks. The Habsburgs only gradually regained Hungary delayed by their involvement in the Thirty Years War.11 Even without losing ground to the Western Europeans the Ottoman Empire was weakened by the declining standards of its ruling Sultans masked by the continued effectiveness of its civil service as well as the Janissary system for recruiting and training its armies. The Ottoman Empire was still militarily formidable at the end of the Seventeenth century due to the Janissary system still being fully functioning. Indeed the Ottoman Empire launched its second siege of the Austrian capital during its summer campaign of 1683. The Habsburgs at one stage seemed to be weakening, whilst they had to rely on the Polish king Jan Saborski to drive the Ottoman armies away from Vienna. The failure of the second siege of Vienna is often described as a turning point in the decline of the Ottoman Empire.12 According to Norman Itzkowitz as well as authors and historians there were internal and also external factors that contributed to the decline of the Ottoman Empire. After Suliman the Magnificent the majority of the Ottoman Sultans were not capable or strong rulers, a recipe for long-term decline in an autocracy like the Ottoman Empire. Instead of astute, capable, and even ruthless Sultans, the later rulers of the Ottoman Empire were often weak and incompetent. The removal of the law of fratricide has frequently been noted as a primary cause of the declining ability and power of the later Sultans of the Ottoman Empire. The eldest direct male heir succeeded the previous Sultan rather than the most capable, or indeed the most ruthless contenders for the throne. The succession of less capable and weaker Sultans meant that the increasing weaknesses of the Ottoman Empire was taken advantage of by foreign powers. The decline of the Ottoman Empire was arguably accelerated by the rising might of European powers that directly or indirectly threatened its interests as well as its territories. Some of these European powers that weakened the Ottoman Empire would have been regarded as insignificant during the Sixteenth and Seventeenth centuries, for example Great Britain, and Russia. The more established powers of the Habsburgs and France also went on to threaten the security and territories of the Ottoman Empire on various occasions. For instance the Habsburgs were interested in gaining territories that they claimed to have a dynastic right to rule over.13 Undoubtedly it was Russia that was the largest gainer of spoils from the decline of the Ottoman Empire as its own military power increased. From the reign of Peter the Great the Russians took territory away from the Ottoman Empire including the Black Sea as well as around the Crimea, and the Caucuses.14 Great Britain and France took advantage of Ottoman weakness to construct the Suez Canal without formally taking territory off the Sultan. The British were actually weary of Russian expansion so did not want the Ottoman Empire to become too weak. Indeed Great Britain and France were allied to the Ottoman Empire during the Crimean War to prevent Russia gaining further territory in the Crimean region. Ironically Great Britain and France were allied to Russia against the Ottoman Empire during the First World War.15 Another factor highlighted in the decline of the Ottoman Empire was the spread of nationalism in some of its colonies especially in Central, Eastern, and Southern Europe. The Nineteenth century witnessed the majority of Europeans within the Ottoman Empire gaining their independence. Nationalism was spread by the ideals of the French Revolution and the Greeks were the first to gain independence in the 1830s.16 By the end of the 1870s Bulgaria, Romania, and Serbia had all gained their independence from the Ottoman Empire. These countries argued with each other and also Austro-Hungary over parts of the Ottoman Empire, inadvertently causing the First World War. In the Middle East Egypt had also left the Ottoman Empire yet de facto British control made Egyptian independence more apparent than real. The territories that the Ottoman Empire lost during the course of the Nineteenth century and the first decade of the Twentieth century meant that it was critically weakened. However Ottoman Turk military resilience during the First World War surprised its opponents, and contributed to Russia’s defeat on the Eastern Front.17 Bibliography R. Bideleux and I. Jeffries (1998), A History of Eastern Europe, Crisis and Change, Routledge Books R Fisk (2006) The Great War For Civilisation, The Conquest of The Middle East, Harper N Itzkowitz, Ottoman Empire and Islamic Tradition R Lewis, (1971) Everyday Life in Ottoman Turkey, Batsford J.M. Roberts, (1996) A History of Europe, Helicon Publishing Ltd Read More