The Decline of the Ottoman Empire - Literature review Example

The Ottoman Empire By Key words: Ottoman Empire, Sultan The Ottoman Empire Introduction Empires have risen and fallen throughout history and in Islamic history, there have been a number of empires in the last millennium such as the Mughals, Mamluks and the Ottomans that have risen to prominence only for them to eventually decline and fall due to a number of factors. It is often said that empires/dynasties have a similar life span to human beings which is characterized by growing up, stagnation and then decline or retrogression (Darwin 2009). Just like a natural person begins through birth, the Ottoman Empire arose as a small state in Anatolia, currently Turkey under the rule of the Turkish sultans in the year 1300.The state grew and by 1453, it had transformed into an empire that was a force to be reckoned with and an established capital city in Istanbul, responsible for controlling lands in Asia and Europe. Under the rule of Sultan Suleyman, the empire reached its climax in the mid-1500s.Written accounts from that period suggest that it was the largest and most powerful empire in Europe with interests in North Africa, parts of Persia and the Arabian Peninsula. As the analogy stated, the empire stagnated from this period and was followed by periods of retrogression and its eventual demise. The factors that contributed to its decline are discussed. Reasons for the decline of Ottoman Empire One of the reasons for the decline of the Ottoman Empire was the presence of a weak and ineffective government. Since the establishment of the Ottoman Empire, as a state under Osman Gazi, to its peak as an all -conquering dynasty, political power was centralized under the sultan. The Ottoman Empire was a dynasty kind of empire meaning current sultans were preceded by their sons in the event of their death. However, succession was not fully legitimized. It is recorded that sultans ruling in the early periods of the establishment of the empire centralized power and were heavily involved in directing the empire in the direction they deemed necessary. The sultans took great pride in their roles and chaired government meetings, led military expeditions personally when conquering new territories up to the edges of the empire, hired, and fired high-ranking officials in the government (Lewis 1958). In the early years of the formation of the Ottoman Empire, there were many civil wars caused by the competing sons of the deceased sultan. In most cases however, the sultans would publicly make it known which of their sons his preferred successor was. In cases where the sultan had not chosen a successor before his death, the kingdom would be plagued by wars that lasted for a number of years which was detrimental to the growth of the kingdom due to the destruction witnessed. Sultan Ahmed I, who ruled between 1603-1617, device a new system for choosing a successor of the sultan with the aim of solving the issue of civil unrest brought by the lack of a chosen successor. The new system abolished the previous setting where sons of the sultan were made governors of the empire while their father was still sultan and instead, the princes were forced to remain in the palace and not hold any political office until the death of the sultan. This had the effect of ‘imprisoning’ them until the death of the sultan. However, the results of this measure were disastrous, regardless of the sultan’s intentions, as the future sultans were in essence being denied much needed experience to govern the vast kingdom. The incoming sultans lacked experience in matters of policy and government and did not involve themselves in matters of the state but divulged in pleasures that were offered by the confines of the palace. This marked the end of the tradition of grooming future sultans to be able and resourceful leaders before ascending to the throne. This was disastrous because one of the major duties of a sultan was leading the army in war but with the institution of the new system, the successors of the future throne abandoned this duty as evidenced by the fact that, the last sultan of the Ottoman Empire to lead his army into battle was Sultan Murad IV in 1638. The sultans were still tasked with the responsibility of ruling their empires despite their incompetence and inexperience, meaning they retained the political power in the absence of education and know- how of managing such a vast kingdom. As a result, the empire was followed by long periods of political instability characterized by the firing of ministers also known as Viziers, at the pleasure of the sultan. It led to instability because of the lack of continuity of the enforcement of government policies. The sultans also failed to develop the civil service by opting not to promote experienced and talented personnel by rationalizing that, they themselves had not received prior education and training yet they ruled the Ottoman Empire. The Ottoman Empire failed to promote people on merit and the government was plagued by cases of favoritism, corruption and bribery which gave rise to the encroachment of incompetent senior government officials in the Ottoman’s central government. As a result, decentralization was established and local governments began to acquire more autonomy and the central government in Istanbul lost some of its power. The consequences of the loss of power were evidenced by a reduction in tax revenue remitted by the local governments which trickled down to other sectors of the central government like the army which was made weaker. The consequential decline in its military prowess did not go unnoticed by other empires in Austria, France, England and Russia who began plotting ways of attacking and undermining the declining empire. The source of the income of the Ottoman Empire was traditionally booty which was acquired in expeditions of war. In the mid-1500s, the empire had reached its maximum size and foreign nations that were susceptible to war became farther from the capital city in Istanbul. The funds necessary for military campaigns became more expensive and it reached a point that the empire could not expand further without incurring losses. In that same period, neighboring kingdoms in Spain, Portugal, France and England began conquering and exploring across the Atlantic Ocean into the New World and their conquests gained them large amounts of silver and gold. The Spanish for example, brought a lot of silver from present day Latin America. Silver were the currency of the Ottoman Empire and the sudden influx of silver coins in the market brought by the Spanish conquest of Latin America, led to inflation which had the effect of devaluing the Ottoman currency as per the economic laws of demand and supply. In 1580, before the inflation, 1 gold cold coin went for 60 silver coins but in 1590 due to the inflation, 1 gold coin was equivalent to 120 silver coins and by 1640, 1 gold coin was the equivalent of 250 silver coins (Kia 2008). The increased inflation levels resulted in the plummeting of prices of goods and the Ottoman Empire together with its citizens was devastated by the effects of inflation. Economic stagnation and decline of the Ottoman Empire continued well into the 1600s to 1700s and the central government was forced to find alternative sources of income. While the Ottoman Empire declined, European powers such as England began emerging as power houses in military and economic development, which was brought by the early onset of the industrial revolution in Europe. This led to the establishment of new economic policies and concessions began to be agreed such as the agreement between the Ottoman Empire and France where the French were granted total control of entire industries in the Ottoman Empire in exchange for diplomatic support and payments. The effects of these kind of agreements was devastating as witnessed in 1740 when the Ottoman Empire entered into an agreement with the government of France that led to French citizens being granted the right to travel and trade in any part of the Empire. The French traders had cheaper goods than the Ottoman traders due to their ability to enjoy the effects of economies of scale and the local merchants were pushed out of the market gradually. This was further coupled with a loss of sovereignty due to the fact that, the French nationals began spreading Catholicism in the Empire and could not be restricted by the Ottoman government because of the concession and capitulations agreements entered. Historical reviews suggest that the primary reason for the economic decline of the Ottoman Empire, are the capitulations of the period 1700-1800 which led to a sequence of contracts that put the Empire in a position of servitude to the European governments ( The Decline of the Ottoman Empire: Part 1 Politics and Economics. (n.d.) 2014). Islam was the basis of the Ottoman Empire since the early 14th century. The empire was establishment under the guidance of the Islamic traditions of the Seljuk Empire founded in the middle Ages which perceived itself as the defender of Islam, a stand that was later adopted by the Ottoman Empire. With the expansion of the empire, the Ottomans formalized their stand as the defenders of Islam and the sultans were given the title of khalifah of the world of Muslims. They institutionalized sharia law as the law of the empire, which are Islam religious laws that were passed through Prophet Muhammad in the Arabian Peninsula in the 7th century. However, in the latter stages of the Ottoman Empire when it began to decline, people begun questioning their faith due to the fact that European nations who were predominantly Christians, began being more prosperous than them. The people wondered whether Christianity was superior to Islam and if they needed to be more like the Europeans in order to be equally as successful. By the early 19th century, the sultan was faced with the same crisis and he initiated reforms with an aim of aligning the empire to be more similar to their European counterparts. In 1826, for instance, Sultan Mahmud II instituted a reform regarding clothing for all government officials which saw the abandonment of the turbans and traditional robes to the adoption of the military clothes fashioned in European styles. He also adopted other reforms such as abolishing the traditional Janissaries, which was a military troop that hailed from the whole kingdom and adopted a new corps known as Nizam-i-cedid which was exclusively composed of the Empire’s Turkish population. Mahmud II’s reforms were the trigger in a number of drastic reforms that saw the Ottoman Empire restructured and in 1839 and 1856, Sultan Abdulmecid adopted the Tanzimat reforms that oversaw a complete overhaul of the structure of the Ottoman government. The Tanzimat reforms consisted of a number of laws that were for the purpose of modernizing the system of government in order to be more aligned with the European way of government structure. The sharia-based system of government, Islamic norms, laws, were ridden off, and the social structure of equitable Islamic Law was done away with. The empire certainly needed to reform in order to spark growth but the complete eradication of Islam from Ottoman’s state political structure, was not necessary, as they needed to deal with other more pressing areas like the economy. Other reforms instituted include the replacement of Islamic judges, establishment of a finance system aped from the French model, enforcement of an Ottoman identity, legalization of homosexuality, reform on the education system to be based on science and technology instead of the Koran and replacing artisan guilds with factories. The move by the sultan to wipe out Islam from public life, made many citizens in the Empire feel as if their traditions were being marginalized to accommodate European way of life, that was not compatible with the Ottomans’ way of life. Traditional roles reserved for sheikhs, Islamic judges and teachers were abolished leading to opposition from the public regarding the Tanzimat reforms. Islamic rebellions sprung out in Egypt, Bosnia and Arabia. Islam had been a unifying factor in the empire and with the reforms, that bond was broken and the kingdom began to crumble. Turks and Arabs had been linked within the Ottoman Empire since 1517 and through their interactions, their cultures borrowed from one another and it even led to intermarriages among the two groups. They were both entangled in the affairs of the Ottoman state, European nationalism affected them, and in response to uprisings by the Serbian, Armenian and Greeks, the Turkish leaders tried to device ways to deal with the situation to counter the revolts. Many nationals in the empire begun viewing the nation as a Turkish state and as a result, instead of the pan-Islamic state that the then sultan, Abdul Hamid wanted, there was emphasis on promoting the idea that Turkish nationalism should be enhanced and developed in the same vigor as with which the Europeans had. This was evidenced by the fact that, Turks started excluding other nationals in senior government positions and began promoting secular culture at the expense of Islam especially in the 19th century. In World War 1, the Ottomans aligned themselves with Austria and Germany against the British, French and Russians. Turkish nationalism at the time meant that the army was comprised almost exclusively of Turks and the British saw an opportunity to divide the Ottoman State further (Grant 1999). They promised Sherrif Hussain an Arab governor of the state of Makkah, his own kingdom if he would align himself with the British against the Turks (Ottomans) and supplied him with large amounts of money and firearms /ammunition. The British also persuaded Arabs from the western peninsula to revolt against the Ottomans. For the entirety of the war, the Arabs attacked the Ottoman troops in the Arab Peninsula. The motive of the attack was to aid the British in easily conquering the Ottoman Empire and Jerusalem who were under the control of the Europeans for the first time since 1187. The First World War was later won by the British. They were faced with revolts by the Arabs, invasion by the European forces which led to the death of the Ottoman Empire by the end of the World War 1 in 1918. The British and French divided the Arab world amongst themselves, and new independent states were established such as Palestine, Jordan, Iraq, Syria and Lebanon. Jews were settled in Israel and Egypt fell under the colonial rule of the British. The great Ottoman Empire was divided into many competing nationalistic states and it marked the end to the empire. References Lewis, B. (1958). Some reflections on the decline of the Ottoman Empire. S. l.: S. n.]. Darwin, J. (2009). After Tamerlane: The rise and fall of global empires, 1400-2000. New York: Bloomsbury Press. The Decline of the Ottoman Empire: Part 1 Politics and Economics. (n.d.). Retrieved November 17, 2014, from http:// lostislamichistory.com/the-decline-of-the-ottoman-empire-part-1/ Grant, J. (n.d.), 1999. Rethinking the Ottoman "Decline": Military Technology Diffusion In The Ottoman Empire, Fifteenth To Eighteenth Centuries. Journal of World History, 179-201. Kia, M. (2008). The Ottoman Empire. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press. Read More