The Ottoman Empire and the World Around It

305 Pages·2005·9.8 MB·English

by  Suraiya Faroqhi

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~ T O E ~
HE TTOMAN MPIRE
W A I
AND THE ORLD ROUND T
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~ For Virginia Aksan
in friendship ~
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~ The Ottoman Empire
and the World Around It
~ S F ~
URAIYA AROQHI
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Published in 2004 by I.B. Tauris & Co Ltd
6 Salem Road, London W2 4BU
175 Fifth Avenue, New York NY 10010
www.ibtauris.com
In the United States of America and Canada
distributed by Palgrave Macmillan a division of St Martin’s Press
175 Fifth Avenue, New York NY 10010
Copyright © Suraiya Faroqhi 2004
The right of Suraiya Faroqhi to be identified as the author of this work has been
asserted by the author in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patent Act
1988.
All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in a review, this book, or any part
thereof, may not be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or
transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying,
recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
The Library of Ottoman Studies 7
ISBN 1 85043 715 7
EAN 978 1 85043 715 4
A full CIP record for this book is available from the British Library
A full CIP record is available from the Library of Congress
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: available
Typeset in Times by JCS Publishing Services
Printed and bound in Great Britain by MPG Books Ltd, Bodmin
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~ Table of contents
List of illustrations ix
A note on transliteration and dates x
Acknowledgements xi
Map of the Ottoman Empire in Asia and Africa xiii
Map of the Ottoman Empire in Europe xiv
1 ~ Introduction 1
Islamic law and sultanic pragmatism: 2 ~ Determining the parameters of
Ottoman ‘foreign policy’: some general considerations: 4 ~ A few ground
rules of Ottoman ‘foreign politics’: 6 ~ Validity and limits of the ‘warfare
state’ model: 8 ~ Accommodation, both open and unacknowledged, and the
problem of structural similarities in the early modern world: 10 ~ An
impossible balance between ‘east’ and ‘west’?: 11 ~ Who, in which period,
formed part of the Ottoman elite?: 13 ~ The Ottoman Empire as a world
economy: 14 ~ The abiding centrality of Istanbul: 16 ~ Confronting our
limits: problems of documentation: 18 ~ ‘Placing’ our topic in geographical
terms: 20 ~ ‘Placing’ our topic in time: 21 ~ Confronting different
perspectives, or how to justify comparisons: 23 ~ A common world: 25 ~
2 ~ On sovereignty and subjects: expanding and safeguarding
the Empire 27
‘Foreign interference’ and its limits: 28 ~ A sequence of ‘mental images’: 30
~ The 1560s/967–77: 32 ~ Introducing the major ‘players’ of the 1560s/
967–77: the Habsburg possessions, France, Venice and Iran: 32 ~ Religious
rivalries of the 1560s/967–77: 34 ~ The mid-sixteenth century: foreign
subjects present on Ottoman territory – and those who were conspicuously
absent: 37 ~ Religious-cum-political rivalries between the sultans and
‘western’ rulers in the 1560s/967–77: 41 ~ How the Ottoman elite did not
organize its relations with the outside world in the 1560s/967–77: 43 ~ Limits
of imperial reach in the 1560s/967–77: Anatolian loyalties to non-Ottoman
princes: 44 ~ Limits of imperial reach: some Rumelian examples: 46 ~ Limits
of imperial reach in the 1560s/967–77, a further example: Yemen as a
frontier province: 47 ~ The Empire in 1639/1048–9: 49 ~ Protecting Ottoman
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VI ~ THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE AND THE WORLD AROUND IT ~
territories in 1639/1048–9: the eastern frontier: 49 ~ The northern regions as
a trouble spot in 1639/1048–9: 50 ~ Expanding Ottoman territory in 1639/
1048–9: relations with Venice and the imminent conquest of Crete: 51 ~
Potential threats to Ottoman control over the western part of the Balkan
peninsula in 1639/1048–9: 52 ~ Early links to the seventeenth-century
European world economy?: 53 ~ Before 1718/1130–1: 55 ~ Wars on all
fronts: 55 ~ ‘The Empire strikes back’: toward a reprise en main before
1718/1130–1: 58 ~ Extraterritorialities before 1718/1130–1: 60 ~ Conquest
and trade as sources of regional instabilities before 1718/1130–1: 62 ~
War-induced regional instabilities before 1718/1130–1: Serbs on both sides
of the frontier: 64 ~ 1774/1187–8: 67 ~ The Russo-Ottoman war of 1768–74/
1181–8: 67 ~ Provincial power magnates and international relations in
1774/1187–8: 69 ~ Eighteenth-century prosperity and crisis in the
‘economic’ field: 70 ~ The desert borders in 1774/1187–8: 72 ~ In
conclusion: the Ottoman rulers within a set of alliances: 73
3 ~ On the margins of empire: clients and dependants 75
The royal road to empire-building: from ‘dependent principality’ to ‘centrally
governed province’: 75 ~ ‘Dependent principalities’ with long life-spans: 77
~ Ottoman methods of conquest and local realities: 78 ~ Old and new local
powers in ‘centrally governed provinces’: 80 ~ Semi-autonomous provinces
controlled by military corps and ‘political households’: 82 ~ The case of the
Hijaz: 84 ~ Subsidising a reticent dependant: the sherifs as autonomous
princes on the desert frontier: 84 ~ The sherifs, the Bedouins and the security
of the pilgrimage caravan: 87 ~ The sherifs in the international arena: 88 ~
The case of Dubrovnik: linking Ottoman sultans to the Catholic
Mediterranean: 89 ~ ‘Cruel times in Moldavia’: 91 ~ In conclusion: 95 ~
4 ~ The strengths and weaknesses of Ottoman warfare 98
Ottoman military preparedness and booty-making: assessing their
significance and limits: 98 ~ Ottoman political advantages in early modern
wars: 102 ~ Financing wars and procuring supplies: the changing weight of
tax assignments and cash disbursals: 104 ~ How to make war without footing
the bill – at least in the short run: 108 ~ Logistics: cases of gunpowder: 110 ~
Societies of frontiersmen: 112 ~ Legitimacy through victory, de-
legitimization through wars on the sultan’s territories: 114 ~ In conclusion:
Ottoman society organized to keep up with the military reformation: 116 ~
5 ~ Of prisoners, slaves and the charity of strangers 119
Prisoners in the shadows: 119 ~ Captured: how ordinary people paid the price
of inter-empire conflict and attempts at state formation: 121 ~ From captive
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~ CONTENTS ~ VII
to slave: 124 ~ The miseries of transportation: 126 ~ On galleys and in
arsenals: 127 ~ Charity and the tribulations of prisoners: 129 ~ The ‘extra-
curricular’ labours of galley – and other – slaves: 131 ~ Domestic service:
132 ~ The role of local mediation in ransoming a Christian prisoner: 134 ~ In
conclusion: 135 ~
6 ~ Trade and foreigners 137
Merchants from remote countries: the Asian world: 138 ~ Merchants from a
(not so) remote Christian country: the Venetians: 140 ~ Polish traders and
gentlemanly visitors: 142 ~ Merchants from the lands of a (doubtful) ally:
France: 144 ~ Subjects of His/Her Majesty, the king/queen of England: 148 ~
Links to the capital of the seventeenth-century world economy: the Dutch
case: 150 ~ How Ottoman merchants coped with foreigners and foreign trade:
151 ~ Revisiting an old debate: ‘established’ and ‘new’ commercial actors:
154 ~ The Ottoman ruling group and its attitudes to foreign trade: 155 ~
7 ~ Relating to pilgrims and offering mediation 161
The problems of Iranian pilgrims in Iraq and the Hijaz: 162 ~ Jewish visitors
to Jerusalem: 164 ~ Christian visitors writing about Palestine and the Sinai
peninsula: 165 ~ Ottoman people and places in western accounts of
Jerusalem: 167 ~ The Christian pilgrimage to Jerusalem in Muslim eyes: 169
~ Catholic missionaries in Ottoman lands: 171 ~ Mediations, ambiguities and
shifts of identity: 174 ~ An eighteenth-century Istanbul xenophobe: 176 ~
Was friendship between an Ottoman Muslim and a non-Muslim foreigner an
impossible proposition?: 177 ~
8 ~ Sources of information on the outside world 179
The knowledge of the ambassadors: some general considerations: 181 ~
Fleeting encounters: a sea captain and diplomat in sixteenth-century
India: 183 ~ The knowledge of the envoys: representing Ottoman dignity
in Iran: 185 ~ Lying abroad for the good of one’s sovereign: obscuring
Ottoman intentions in early eighteenth-century Iran: 186 ~ Reporting on
European embassies: 187 ~ Old opponents, new allies: 191 ~ In the empire of
the tsars: 192 ~ Difficult beginnings: a new type of information-gathering:
193 ~ Framing the world according to Ottoman geographers: 194 ~ Taking
notice of the Americas: 197 ~ Kâtib Çelebi and his circle: 199 ~ Non-Muslim
Ottoman subjects and their travel writing: 200 ~ Tracking down the
knowledge of the educated Muslim townsman: 203 : Evliya Çelebi’s stories
about Europe: 204 ~ Holland and the way thither: 204 ~ European frontiers:
a quantité négligeable?: 206 ~ And what about Evliya’s intentions in
writing?: 207 ~ In conclusion: 208 ~
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VIII ~ THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE AND THE WORLD AROUND IT ~
9 ~ Conclusion 211
A common world: 211 ~ The integration of foreigners: 212 ~ Imperial
cohesion, ‘corruption’ and the liberties of foreigners: 213 ~ Coping with the
European world economy: 214 ~ Ottoman rule: between the centre and the
margins: 215 ~ Providing information: what ‘respectable people’ might or
might not write about: 216 ~ Embassy reports: much maligned but a sign of
changing mentalities: 217 ~
Bibliography 220
Notes 263
Index 283
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~ List of illustrations
1. Helmet and armour intended as a diplomatic present from the Habsburg
Emperor Rudolf II to the Grand Vizier Sinan Paşa. 39
2. View from Semlin towards Belgrade, with the Ottoman fortress beyond the
Danube, early nineteenth century 66
3. A janissary and his European captive, 1669 124
4. The naval arsenal at Kasımpaşa, Istanbul, after 1784 and before 1800 128
5. The Damascus gate in the walls of Jerusalem 169
6. The parade by which Ahmed Resmi entered Berlin in 1763 189
7. Secretary of the Ottoman embassy to Berlin, carrying the sultan’s letter
(after 1763) 190
8. A visit of the Ottoman ambassador Mehmed efendi, accompanied by his
son Hüseyin, at the court of King Augustus of Poland in 1731 218