Group number: 5

Theme: The Ottoman Empire

Member of the group:

HERINJIVA NOTIAVINA AINA Sarobidy Iriantsoa Group: 3 Number: 6

MENDRIPITIAVANA Tiana Nantenaina Group: 3 Number: 8
RABEARISON Mamy Ny Aina Gaël Andrianina Group: 3 Number: 10
RANDRIAMIADANA Ravo Fanomezantsoa Mireille Group: 3 Number: 16
RAKOTOARISOA Jean Johnny Group: 4 Number: 9
RAMIANDRISOA Mikanto Mahandry Group: 4 Number 11
TOJONIAINA Fanomezantsoa Group: 4 Number: 18
NASANDRATRINIAINA Tahianjanahary Gicot Group: 4 Number: 6

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 THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE

INTRODUCTION
The Ottoman Empire is a model in the history: a membership model, a toughness and
powerful empire which knew how to be essential during many centuries. It is an empire who
knew how to use the hard power and the soft power1 at the same time for having a military,
economic, diplomatic and cultural over the others.

BEGINNING OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE

In 1299, a tribe called Osmali did the conquest of one part of the Anatolia. This tribute
speaks Turkish. By the way Anatolia will make up the future Turk. Quickly after many
conquests in 1299, the Ottoman Empire was born and Osman become the first Sultan 2.
The new young empire win rapidly and successfully in power. Their soldier is the Janissary3,
the soldier of faith. The conquest was like a religious war for the fighter. The soldiers were
very determined then and chained together the conquest.

THE RISE OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE

In 1453, it is the accession for the Ottoman Empire. They spread their empire to
Constantinople by taking the city and dropping the Roman Orleans empire; that’s when the
empire really settles. The Ottomans will then continue the conquest. For example, they took
over the Balkans and the countries around. Their power only grows. It is under the reign of
Suleiman the Magnificent that the empire grows and spreads across three continents: Asia,
Europe and Africa. The Ottoman empire is on its peak. The trades are fine, the territory is
huge, the membership is very satisfactory and tolerance reigns especially with Jews and
Christians who have the status of protected. The society is stable with the administration of
the Vizier. The economy is well held with ease of trade. The empire is doing fine but as every
empire it ends up declining.

THE FALL OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE

Following their conquest, on August 29th 1526, the battle of Mohàcs saw the opposition of the
forces of the Ottoman empire led by Suleiman the Magnificent and those of the kingdom of
Hungary commanded by King Louis III; however, this was the victory before the setback.
Three years later (1529) the Ottomans meet in Vienna, capital of the Hapsburg empire; this
is where the decline really begins since they lose. This defeat is clearly the beginning of the
end. Later on, the union of Christians continues and the Ottoman Turks lost against the allied

1
Hard power: using military and economic influence (trades deals, sanctions) to force a country to act in a
particular way
Soft power: subtler persuasion of countries to act in a particular way, on the basis that the persuader is
respected and appearing
2
Or king: military commander and political leader
3
The sultan’s personal bodyguard (captured Christian children, converted to Islam, trained soldiers)

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Christian forces of the Holy League during an Ottoman campaign to acquire the Venetian
island of Cyprus; that was the Battle of Lepanto (October 7th; 1571) a naval engagement in
the waters off south-western Greece. Membership is no longer present until before. In 1622,
a bribery breaks out, the “Janissaries” killed Osman II (the emperor) because he was seeking
a counterweight to Janissary influence, closed their coffee shop (the gathering points for
conspiracies against the throne) and started planning to create a new and more loyal army
consisting of Anatolian sekbans4.The more political and military difficulties, the more
economic difficulties emerge. The trade center is no longer in the Mediterranean but in the
Atlantic. The emergence of the Russian empire does them no good either and so they lose
territories again. The empire is weakening. In 1683, in a new attempt to conquer Vienna, the
Ottomans army get destroyed. They are resuming the industrial revolution. They will never
get over it. On the other, they try to copy the Western practices. However, nothing does there
the Ottoman empire runs to its lose. Their territorial step back worsens: they lose Algeria in
favour of France; other countries take their independence such as Egypt in 1882.They will
eventually lose control of their economy. They will be saved from Russia by France and
Great Britain and will fall under their influence. They will be forced to buy French and British
products and this will lead to the creation of the Suez Canal. Before the first world war, there
was a group called the “Young Turk” who did a “coup d’Etat” or revolution in 1908 and they
take over the power. The Ottoman empire will go on defeating; it was the Armenians who
made the defeats. The result is known: one million person died: one of the XXI century’s
genocides. The partition of the Ottoman Empire was finalized under the terms of the 1920
“Treaty of Sévres”. This treaty, as designed in the Conference of London, allowed the Sultan
to retain his position and title. The status of Anatolia was problematic given the occupied
forces. The sultanate was abolished on November, 1st 1922 and the last sultan Mehmed VI
(reigned 1918 – 1922) left the country on November 17th 1922. The Republic of Turkey was
established in its place on October 29th 1923, in the new capital city of Ankara.

SOCIETY STRUCTURE OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE

The reason why the society of the Ottoman Empire was successful is that they used their
military strength and intimidation to impose too strict discipline to the colonies, or it is also
part of Islam’s laws which stated that Muslims, Christians and Jews are all “People of the
book”5. However, when Mehmed II took the throne, he gave more freedoms to the Phanariot
Greeks6 and some Jews can also settle in the Ottoman territory.
Concept of nation
The religious communities called millets7 were allowed to establish their own laws, traditions
and language but it is must also follow the Ottoman’s rule under the Ottoman’s reign. During
the reign of Mehmed II, many things were restored in Constantinople (after its conquest)
such as buildings, streets and bridges, sanitary facilities, a vast supply were established to
satisfy the people. Fortunately, the Ottoman Empire were also open-minded, that is why they
could tolerate many different ethnicity during their conquest until the raise of nationalism (this

4
Mercenaries of peasant background in the Ottoman Empire
5
Or Ahl al-kitāb is an Islamic term referring to those religions which Muslims regard as having been guided by
previous revelations, generally in the form of a scripture
6
Were members of prominent Greek families in Phanar (quarter midway up the Golden Horn in the district
of Fatih in Istanbul, Turkey)
7
Religious community

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non-assimilative policy became a weakness during the dissolution of the empire that neither
the first or second parliaments could successfully address.
Slavery
The Ottoman were a mixed race people because of their many conquest and they also were
a nomadic people; in the country where they conquered, they practised slavery. Or the
Qur’an8 states that “everyone is the same”. However, the Ottoman Empire did not stand the
practise of slavery even if millets can do what they wanted to do to others; it means that they
had the right to govern in their own. It is another way of saying that they used slavery.
Practising slavery were especially forbidden by the sharia9. For example, “by the term of
sharia, any slaves who were taken could not be kept as slaves if they converted to Islam. It
was, in fact, considered an insult to term an Ottoman man as a slave-master, and there
where incidents in which Ottomans responded unsympathetically to any who even mentioned
the idea of slavery to them”.
In the first place, slavery was usually dedicated to odaliks10. After the Tanzimatt11 period,
slavery earned a little bit of freedom even if it was totally abolished after the proclamation of
the republic.
There was a system called Devsirme12; in that system, the kul or the subject of the Sultan
had high states among others even if the Sultan had power over them.
Slavery was a Caucasian phenomenon carried to Anatolia and Rumelia after the Circassian13
migration in 1864.
CUTURE OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE
Istanbul Park
The Ottoman culture is a little bit difficult to define because they were a nomad population so
they had many different kinds of cultures, such as the Turkish Ottoman culture, the Greek
Ottoman culture and the Armenian Ottoman culture. But there was one typical culture who
stands out from the others, it was composed of a myriad of a different ethnic and religious
group.
Most of the Ottoman culture came from Oghuz Turks with their central Asian Turkic nomadic
culture after the Sultan Mehmed II’s conquest of Constantinople (later named Istanbul), many
European culture came in the Ottoman culture.
The Ottoman culture stayed longer due their policies. Their policies stated that they were
more flexible about the other’s culture; however, during that medieval times, other empire
were not more responsive over the other empire. Also, considering that the Ottoman Empire
were a nomadic population, they conquer and could interact rapidly with the others too
(Examples: multicultural marriages played their part in creating the characteristic Ottoman
elite culture.

8
The sacred scripture of Islam
9
Or « the correct paths » in Arabic, refers to the divine counsel that Muslims follow to live moral lives and grow
close to God
10
chambermaid
11
Was a period of reform in the Ottoman Empire that began in 1839 and ended in 1876
12
was a system of forced labor, probably begun in the late 14th century, in which Christian boys, mostly from
the Balkans, were taken from their homes to serve the Ottoman government
13
are an indigenous Northwest Caucasian ethnic group and nation native to the historical country-region
of Circassia in the North Caucasus

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LANGUAGE
Ottoman Empire had a unique multilingualism which attributed to its cosmopolitan structure
and cultural richness. Ethnic groups with their own languages (e.g. Greeks, Jews-who often
spoke Ladino, etc.) continued to speak them within their families and neighbourhoods. In
villages where two or more populations lived together, the inhabitants would often speak
each other’s language. In cosmopolitan cities, people often spoke their family languages,
some Ottoman or Persian if they were educated, and some Arabic if they were Muslim. In the
last two centuries, French and English emerged as popular languages. The elite learned
French at school, and used European products as a fashion statement. The use of Turkish
grew steadily under the Ottomans but they were still interested in their two other official
languages so they kept them with a new limited usage: Persian for literature and Arabic
solely for religious rites. Many famous Persian poets emerged at this time.
Ottoman Turkish was a variety of Turkish, highly influenced by Persian and Arabic. Ottoman
had three influential languages; Turkish, Persian, Arabic but they did not have a parallel
status. Throughout the vast Ottoman bureaucracy and, in particularly, within the Ottoman
court in later times, a version of Turkish was spoken, albeit with a vast mixture of both Arabic
and Persian grammar and vocabulary. If the basic grammar was still largely Turkish, the
inclusion of virtually any word in Arabic or Persian in Ottoman made it a language which was
essentially incomprehensible to any Ottoman subject who had not mastered Arabic, Persian
or both. The two varieties of the language became so differentiated that ordinary people had
to hire special “request-writers” in order to be able to communicate with the government.

STATE AND RELIGION

Largely for practical reasons, the Ottoman Empire was, in broad sense, tolerant towards its
non-Muslim subjects; it did not, for instance, forcibly convert them to Islam. The sultans took
their primary duty to be service to the interests of the state, which could not survive without
taxes and strong administrative system. The state’s relationship with the Greek Orthodox
Church, for example, was largely peaceful, and the church’s structure was kept intact and
largely left alone but under close control and scrutiny until the Greek War of Independence of
1821 - 1831 and, later in the 19th and early 20th centuries, the rise of the Ottoman
constitutional monarchy, which was driven to some extent by nationalistic currents, tried to
be balanced with ottomanism. Other churches, like the Bulgarian Orthodox Church, were
dissolved and placed under the jurisdiction of the Greek Orthodox Church. On the other
hand, the empire often served as refuge for the persecuted and exiled Jews of Europe; for
example, following the expulsion of the Jews from Spain in 1492, Sultan Beyazid II
welcomed them into Ottoman lands.

OTTOMAN CLASSICAL MUSIC

Since music was part of the favour’s education, many Sultans were musicians and
composers such as Selim III (even his works are still used today). Considering that the
capital and the other areas were separated by geographic situation and cultural divergence,
there were two sorts of music style in the Ottoman Empire: Ottoman classical music and folk
music.

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Ottoman classical music was generally the combination of Byzantine music, Arabic music
and Persian music.
LIFESTYLE
The Ottoman lifestyle were various. It contained the Persian Shahs and had Greek and
European influence. To be privileged in the Ottoman society, you must be skilful. For
example, you must learn many languages (such as Persian and Arabic), you must learn how
to behave in public too (such as in court and in religious occasions). Due to that, the Ottoman
society were divided in two: the high position persons called Ottoman, while the lower
classes persons (peasants and villagers) called Turks.
There were also other states that had their own definition of the Ottoman court. They had
their own rules but they too them from the Ottoman influences (examples: Sarajevo, Skopje,
Thessaloniki, …).
CUISINE
The Ottoman cuisine directly directs to the capital’s cuisine: Istanbul and the regional capital
cities. The population appreciated their cuisine.
There was also the Ottoman Palace’s kitchen. For the sake of the Ramadan’s events and the
cooing of Yalis of Pashas, this Ottoman Palace’s kitchen were created. Furthermore, it was
created for the population’s good.
TOP 6 SULTANS OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE
Bayezid I
Bayezid I, by name Yildirim “The Thunderbolt”, (1360 − March 1403, Akşehir, Ottoman
Empire), Ottoman sultan from 1389 to 1402 who founded the first centralized Ottoman state
based on traditional Turkish and Muslim institutions and who stressed the need to extend
Ottoman dominion in Anatolia.

Murad IV
Murad IV (27 July 1612 − 8 February 1640) was the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire from 1623
to 1640, known both for restoring the authority of the state and for the brutality of his
methods. Murad IV was born in Constantinople, the son of Sultan Ahmed I (r. 1603 − 1617)
and Kösem Sultan.

Selim I “The Resolute”

Selim I, by name Yavuz “The Grim”, born on 1470, Amasya, Ottoman Empire (now in
Turkey) and died on September 22, 1520, Çorlu. Ottman sultan from 1512 to 1520 who
extended the empire to Syria, Egypt, Palestine, and the Hejaz and raised the Ottomans to
leadership of the Muslim world.

Süleyman
Süleyman “TheMagnificent”, by name Süleyman I or the Lawgiver, Turkish Süleyman
Muhteşem or Kanuni, born on November 1494/April 1495 and died on September 5/6, 1566,

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near Szigetvár, Hungary, sultan of the Ottoman Empire from 1520 to 1566 who not only
undertook bold military campaigns that enlarged his realm but also oversaw the development
of what came to be regarded as the most characteristic achievements of Ottoman civilization
in the fields of law, literature, art, and architecture.

Mehmed II “The Conqueror”

Mehmed II, byname Fatih Sultan Mehmed. Born on March 30, 1432 in Adrianople, Thrace,
(Ottoman Empire) and died on May 3, 1481 in Hunkârçayırı, near Maltepe, near
Constantinople. Ottoman sultan from 1444 to 1446 and from 1451 to 1481. A
great military leader, he captured Constantinople and conquered the territories
in Anatolia and the Balkans that constituted the Ottoman Empire’s heartland for the next four
centuries.

Osman I “King of Ottomans”

Osman I, also called Osman Gazi, born on 1258 and died on 1324 or 1326, ruler of a
Turkmen principality in northwestern Anatolia who is regarded as the founder of the Ottoman
Turkish state. Both the name of the dynasty and the empire that the dynasty established are
derived from the Arabic form (ʿUthmān) of his name.

CONCLUSION
The Ottoman Empire showed then in the history that they were a true powerful empire which
we can always see today due to cultural inheritance. However, like the other empire before
and after them, they did not stay stable. They have finished to decline but this did not prevent
that this empire with their success and difficulties will stay a powerful model forever.

SOURCE
Wikipedia.org
britannica.com
Intellipedia
Youtube.com