HIME 3192 Midterm

Gazi

"raiding"

Tahrir defter

A type of tax collector in the Ottoman Empire. The information collected could vary, but tahrir defterleri typically included details of villages, dwellings, household heads (adult males and widows), ethnicity/religion (because these could affect tax liabilities/exemptions), and land use. The defter-i hakâni was a land registry, also used for tax purposes. Each town had a defter and typically an officiator or someone in an administrative role to determine if the information should be recorded. The officiator was usually some kind of learned man who had knowledge of state regulations. The defter was used to record family interactions such as marriage and inheritance. These records are useful for historians because such information allows for a more in-depth understanding of land ownership among Ottomans. This is particularly helpful when attempting to study the daily affairs of Ottoman citizens. Some Ottoman officials responsible for these tax registries were known as defterdars. The term is derived from Greek diphthera διφθέρα meaning book (having pages of goat parchment, used along with papyrus as paper in Ancient Greece) borrowed into Arabic دفتر: daftar meaning book.

Topkapı Palace

After the conquest of Istanbul by Mehmed the Conqueror at 1453, construction of the Topkapı Palace was started at the year 1460 and completed at 1478.

Sheikh Bedreddin Revolt

Sheikh Bedreddin was a famous Muslim Sufi theologian and charismatic preacher who led a rebellion against the Ottoman Empire in 1416. His full name was Sheikh Bedreddin Mahmud Bin Israel Bin Abdulaziz. The main uprising theme of Bedreddin and his companions (Torlak Kemal and Börklüce Mustafa) was to share the land equally among people of Karaburun and not to pay the high taxes demanded by the local representatives of the central Ottoman government.

Kul

a member of the slave class

Kadi

an official in the Ottoman Empire (Arabic: قاضي‎‎ qāḍī). The term kadi refers to judges who presides over matters in accordance with Islamic law, but in the Ottoman Empire, the kadi also became a crucial part of the central authority's administrative hierarchy. After Mehmed II codified his kanun, kadis relied on this dynastic secular law, local customs, and the sharia- Islamic divine law- to guide their rulings. Along with adjudicating over criminal and civil matters, the kadi oversaw the administration of religious endowments and was the legal guardian of orphans and others without a guardian. Although Muslims, in particular Muslim men, possessed a higher status in the kadi's court, non-Muslims and foreigners also had access to the judicial system. Within the Ottoman's provincial administrative system, known as the timar system, the kadi served as an important check on the power of the military class. Despite the unquestioned authority of the sultan, kadis possessed a certain degree of autonomy in their rulings. A kadı's territory was called a kadiluk; there could be several kadiluks in a province (sanjak). Each sub-province or kaza, governed by a kaymakam, had a kadı (though not every kadı was assigned to one kaza, and the boundaries would shift over time).

Timur

was a Turco-Mongol conqueror and the founder of the Timurid Empire in Persia and Central Asia.[3] He was also the first ruler in the Timurid dynasty. This empire fragmented shortly after his death. Timur envisioned the restoration of the Mongol Empire of Genghis Khan. In his formal correspondence Temur continued throughout his life to portray himself as the restorer of Chinggisid rights. He justified his Iranian, Mamluk, and Ottoman campaigns as a re-imposition of legitimate Mongol control over lands taken by usurpers. To legitimize his conquests, Timur relied on Islamic symbols and language, referred to himself as the 'Sword of Islam' and patronized educational and religious institutions. He converted nearly all the Borjigin leaders to Islam during his lifetime. "Temur, a non-Chinggisid, tried to build a double legitimacy based on his role as both guardian and restorer of the Mongol Empire." Timur also decisively defeated the Christian Knights Hospitaller at Smyrna, styling himself a ghazi. *Scholars estimate that his military campaigns caused the deaths of 17 million people, amounting to about 5% of the world population.*

Selcuk/Seljuk

a member of any of the Turkish dynasties that ruled Asia Minor in the 11th to 13th centuries, successfully invading the Byzantine Empire and defending the Holy Land against the Crusaders.

Ahdname ("capitulations")

contracts between the Ottoman Empire and European powers, particularly France. Turkish capitulations, or ahdnames, were generally bilateral acts whereby definite arrangements were entered into by each contracting party towards the other, not mere concessions. The Turkish Capitulations were grants made by successive Sultans to Christian nations, conferring rights and privileges in favour of their subjects resident or trading in the Ottoman dominions, following the policy towards European states of the Byzantine Empire. According to these capitulations traders entering the Ottoman Empire were exempt from local prosecution, local taxation, local conscription, and the searching of their domicile. The capitulations were initially made during the Ottoman Empire's military dominance, to entice and encourage commercial exchange with Western merchants. They were however increasingly exploited after military dominance shifted to Europe, allowing significant economic and political abuse by European powers.

Sipahi

holder of a timer granted directly by the Ottoman sultan and was entitled to all of the income from it in return for military service. Consisted of two types of Ottoman cavalry corps, including the fief-holding provincial timarli sipahi, which constituted most of the army, and the regular kapikulu sipahi, palace troops.

Dervish

someone guiding a Sufi Muslim ascetic down a path or "Tariqah", known for their extreme poverty and austerity. In most Sufi orders, a dervish is known to practice dhikr through physical exertions or religious practices to attain the ecstatic trance to reach God. *Their most common practice is Sama which is associated with Rumi.*

Bursa

the first major and second overall capital of the Ottoman State between 1335 and 1363.

Kızılbaş

the label given to a wide variety of Shi'i militant groups that flourished in Azerbaijan, Anatolia and Kurdistan from the late 15th century onwards, some of which contributed to the foundation of the Safavid dynasty of Iran.

Osman

the leader of the Ottoman Turks and the founder of the Ottoman dynasty. He and the dynasty bearing his name later established and ruled the nascent Ottoman Empire (then known as the Ottoman Beylik or Emirate). The state, while only a small principality during Osman's lifetime, transformed into a world empire in the centuries after his death.

Cem Sultan

A pretender to the Ottoman throne in the 15th century. Cem was the third son of Sultan Mehmed II and younger half-brother of Sultan Bayezid II, and thus a half-uncle of Sultan Selim I of Ottoman Empire. After being defeated by Bayezid, Cem went on exile in Egypt and Europe, under the protection of the Mamluks, the Knights Hospitaller of St. John on the island of Rhodes, and ultimately the Pope.

Timar

A timar was land granted by the Ottoman sultans between the fourteenth and sixteenth centuries, with a tax revenue annual value of less than 20 000 akçes. The revenues produced from land acted as compensation for military service.

Council of Ferrara-Florence

Council of Ferrara-Florence, ecumenical council of the Roman Catholic church (1438-45) in which the Latin and Greek churches tried to reach agreement on their doctrinal differences and end the schism between them. The council ended in an agreed decree of reunion, but the reunion was short-lived.

Battle of Kosovo (1389)

Fought between the army led by the Serbian Prince Lazar Hrebeljanović, and the invading army of the Ottoman Empire under the command of Sultan Murad Hüdavendigâr. The army under Prince Lazar consisted of his own troops, a contingent led by Serbian nobleman Vuk Branković, and a contingent sent from Bosnia by King Tvrtko I, commanded by Vlatko Vuković. Prince Lazar was the ruler of Moravian Serbia, and the most powerful among the Serbian regional lords of the time, while Vuk Branković ruled District of Branković located in a part of Kosovo and other areas, recognizing Lazar as his overlord. The battle was fought on the Kosovo field, in the territory ruled by Branković, in what is today Kosovo.

Ertuğrul

Fther of Osman I, the founder of the Ottoman Empire. While his historicity is proven by coins minted by Osman I which identify Ertuğrul as the name of his father, nothing else is known for certain about his life or activities. According to Ottoman tradition, he was the son of Suleyman Shah, leader of the Kayı tribe of Oghuz Turks, who fled from eastern Iran to Anatolia to escape the Mongol Conquests. According to this legend, after the death of his father, Ertuğrul and his followers entered the service of the Seljuks of Rum, for which he was rewarded with dominion over the town of Söğüt on the frontier with the Byzantine Empire. This set off the chain of events that would ultimately lead to the founding of the Ottoman Empire. Like his son, Osman, and their future descendants, Ertuğrul is often referred to as a Ghazi,[4] a heroic champion fighter for the cause of Islam.

Galata

Galata was a neighbourhood opposite Constantinople, located at the northern shore of the Golden Horn, the inlet which separates it from the historic peninsula of old Constantinople. The Golden Horn is crossed by several bridges, most notably the Galata Bridge. The medieval citadel of Galata was a colony of the Republic of Genoa between 1273 and 1453. The famous Galata Tower was built by the Genoese in 1348 at the northernmost and highest point of the citadel. At present, Galata is a quarter within the borough of Beyoğlu (Pera) in Istanbul, and is known as Karaköy.

Battle of Ankara

The Battle of Ankara or Battle of Angora, fought on 20 July 1402, took place at the field of Çubuk (near Ankara) between the forces of the Ottoman Sultan Bayezid I and Timur, ruler of the Timurid Empire. The battle was a major victory for Timur, and it led to a period of crisis for the Ottoman Empire (the Ottoman Interregnum). However, the Timurid Empire went into terminal decline following Timur's death just three years after the battle, while the Ottoman Empire made a full recovery, and continued to increase in power for another two to three centuries.

Battle of Manzikert

The Battle of Manzikert was fought between the Byzantine Empire and the Seljuq Turks on *August 26, 1071* near Manzikert. The decisive defeat of the Byzantine army and the capture of the Emperor Romanos IV Diogenes played an important role in undermining Byzantine authority in Anatolia and Armenia, and allowed for the gradual Turkification of Anatolia. Many of the Turks, who had been, during the 11th century, travelling westward, saw the victory at Manzikert as an entrance to Asia Minor.

Varna Crusade

The Crusade of Varna was a string of events in 1443-44 between the crusaders and the Ottoman Empire. It culminated in a decisive Ottoman victory at the Battle of Varna on 10 November 1444. The Ottoman Army under Sultan Murad II defeated the Hungarian-Polish and Wallachian armies commanded by Władysław III of Poland (also King of Hungary), John Hunyadi (acting as commander of the combined Christian forces) and Mircea II of Wallachia.

"Gazi thesis"

The Gaza or Gazi Thesis (from Ottoman Turkish: غزا‎, ġazā, "holy war," or simply "raid") is a historical paradigm first formulated by Paul Wittek which has been used to interpret the nature of the Ottoman Empire during the earliest period of its history, the fourteenth century. The thesis addresses the question of how the Ottomans were able to expand from a small principality on the frontier of the Byzantine Empire into a centralized, intercontinental empire. *According to the Gaza Thesis, the Ottomans accomplished this by attracting recruits to fight for them in the name of Islamic holy war against the non-believers.* Such a warrior was known in Turkish as a gazi, and thus this thesis sees the early Ottoman state as a "Gazi State," defined by an ideology of holy war. The Gaza Thesis dominated early Ottoman historiography throughout much of the twentieth century before coming under increasing criticism beginning in the 1980s. Historians now generally reject the Gaza Thesis, and consequently the idea that Ottoman expansion was primarily fueled by holy war, but are conflicted with regard to what to replace it with.

Janissary

The Janissaries were elite infantry units that formed the Ottoman Sultan's household troops and bodyguards. The corps was most likely established during the reign of Murad I (1363).

Kanun

The Kanun was a secular legal system, used along with religious law. Its use originates from the difficulty to address certain matters (such as taxation, administration, financial matters, or penal law) by Sharia alone, which led the Ottoman rulers to use the Kanun to supplement, and sometimes supplant, religious law. It also offered a way to overcome the problems posed by the extent to which Sharia depended on the interpretation of sources by the ulema, which had made legal standardisation problematic.

Safavids

The Safavid dynasty was one of the most significant ruling dynasties of Iran, often considered the beginning of modern Iranian history. The Safavid shahs ruled over one of the so-called gunpowder empires.

Battle of Çaldıran

The battle took place in 1514 and ended with a decisive victory for the Ottoman Empire over the Safavid Empire. As a result, the Ottomans annexed eastern Anatolia and northern Iraq from Safavid Iran for the first time. It marked the first Ottoman expansion into eastern Anatolia, and the halt of the Safavid expansion to the west. Despite the Iranians briefly reconquering the area over the course of the centuries, the battle marked the first event that would eventually, through many wars and treaties later, lead to its permanent conquest, until the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire centuries later. By the Chaldiran war the Ottomans also gained temporary control of northwestern Iran. The battle, however, was just the beginning of 41 years of destructive war, which only ended in 1555 with the Treaty of Amasya. Though Mesopotamia and Eastern Anatolia (Western Armenia) were eventually taken back by the Safavids under the reign of king Abbas I (r. 1588-1629), they would be permanently lost to the Ottomans by the 1639 Treaty of Zuhab. The battle is one of major historical importance because it not only negated the idea that the Murshid of the Shia-Qizilbash was infallible,[17] but it also fully defined the Ottoman-Safavid borders with the Ottomans gaining northwestern Iran, and led Kurdish chiefs to assert their authority and switch their allegiance from the Safavids to the Ottomans.[18]

Kanunname

The early Kanun-name (literally: "book of law") were related to financial and fiscal matters, and based on custom, they tried to reconcile previously existing practices with the priorities and needs of the Ottoman state. Kanun-names were also granted to individual provinces following their conquest; these provincial books of law would typically maintain most of the taxes and dues existing under the previous rule, and simply adapt them to an Ottoman standard.

Battle of Nicopolis

Took place on 25 September 1396 and resulted in the rout of an allied crusader army of Hungarian, Croatian, Bulgarian, Wallachian, French, English, Burgundian, German and assorted troops (assisted by the Venetian navy) at the hands of an Ottoman force, raising of the siege of the Danubian fortress of Nicopolis and leading to the end of the Second Bulgarian Empire. It is often referred to as the Crusade of Nicopolis as it was one of the last large-scale Crusades of the Middle Ages, together with the Crusade of Varna in 1443-1444.

Askeri

Under the Ottoman Empire, an askeri (Ottoman Turkish: عسكري) was a member of a class of imperial administrators. This elite class consisted of three main groups: the military, the court officials, and the religious clergy.

Türkmen/Turcoman

a Turkic people located primarily in Central Asia, in the state of Turkmenistan, as well as in Iran, Afghanistan, North Caucasus (Stavropol Krai), and northern Pakistan. They speak the Turkmen language, which is classified as a part of the Eastern Oghuz branch of the Turkic languages. Examples of other Oghuz languages are Turkish, Azerbaijani, Qashqai, Gagauz, Khorasani, and Salar.

Beylik

a Turkish word, meaning "the territory under the jurisdiction of a Bey" (a Bey is like a Lord). Under its eponymous founder, Osman I, the Beylik of Osmanoğlu expanded at Byzantine expense south and west of the Sea of Marmara in the first decades of the 14th century.

Külliye

a complex of buildings associated with Ottoman architecture centered on a mosque and managed within a single institution, often based on a waqf (charitable foundation) and composed of a madrasa, a Dar al-Shifa ("clinic"), kitchens, bakery, Turkish bath, other buildings for various charitable services for the community and further annexes. The term is derived from the Arabic word kull "all". The tradition of külliye is particularly marked in Turkish architecture, within Seljuq - particularly Ottoman Empire and also Timurid architectural legacies.

Reaya

a member of the tax-paying lower class of Ottoman society, in contrast to the askeri (upper class) and kul (slaves). The rayah made up over 90% of the general population and the millet communities. In the Muslim world, rayah is literally subject of a government or sovereign. The rayah (literally 'members of the flock') included Christians, Muslims, and Jews who were 'shorn' (i.e. taxed) to support the state and the associated 'professional Ottoman' class. However, both in contemporaneous and in modern usage, it refers to non-Muslim subjects in particular, also called zimmi. The word is sometimes mistranslated as 'cattle' rather than 'flock' or 'subjects' to emphasize the inferior status of the rayah. In the early Ottoman Empire, rayah were not eligible for military service, but from the late 16th century, Muslim rayah became eligible, to the distress of some of the ruling class.

Oğuz/Oghuz

a western Turkic people who spoke the Oghuz languages from the Common branch of Turkic language family. In the 8th century, they formed a tribal confederation conventionally named the Oghuz Yabgu State in central Asia. The name Oghuz is a Common Turkic word for "tribe".By the 10th century, Islamic sources were calling the Muslim, as opposed to shamanist or Christian, Oghuz the Turkmens. By the 12th century this term had passed into Byzantine usage and the Oghuzes were overwhelmingly Muslim. The Oghuz confederation migrated westward from the Jeti-su area after a conflict with the Karluk branch of Uigurs. *The founders of the Ottoman Empire were descendants of the Oghuzes.* Today the residents of Turkey, Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan, Khorezm, Turkmens of Afghanistan, Balkans, Iraq and Syria are descendants of Oghuz Turks and their language belongs to the Oghuz (a.k.a. southwestern Turkic) group of the Turkic languages family.

Şahkulu Revolt

a widespread pro-Shia and pro-Safavid uprising in Anatolia, directed against the Ottoman Empire, in 1511. It began among the Turcoman tribes of the Taurus mountains, before spreading to a wide variety of disgruntled groups. It is named after the leader of the rebels, Şahkulu. His death in battle also meant the end of the uprising.

Devşirme

also known as the blood tax or tribute in blood, was chiefly the practice whereby the Ottoman Empire sent military officers to take boys, ages 8 to 18, from their families in order that they be raised to serve the state. This tax of sons was imposed only on the Christian subjects of the empire, in the villages of the Balkans and Anatolia. The boys were then converted to Islam with the primary objective of selecting and training the ablest children and teenagers for the military or civil service of the empire, notably into the Janissaries.

Scanderbeg

an Albanian nobleman and military commander, who served the Ottoman Empire in 1423-43, the Republic of Venice in 1443-47, and lastly the Kingdom of Naples until his death. After leaving Ottoman service, he led a rebellion against the Ottoman Empire in Albania. Skanderbeg always signed himself as Lord of Albania (Latin: Dominus Albaniae), and claimed no other titles but that in official documents. A member of the noble Kastrioti family, he was sent as a hostage to the Ottoman court, where he was educated and entered the service of the Ottoman sultan for the next twenty years. He rose through the ranks, culminating in the appointment as sanjakbey (governor) of the Sanjak of Dibra in 1440. In 1443, he deserted the Ottomans during the Battle of Niš and became the ruler of Krujë, Svetigrad, and Modrič. In 1444, he was appointed the chief commander of the short-lived League of Lezhë that consolidated nobility throughout what is today Albania. Despite his military valor he was not able to do more than to hold his own possessions within the very small area in northern Albania where almost all of his victories against the Ottomans took place. Skanderbeg's rebellion was not a general uprising of Albanians, because he did not gain support in the Ottoman-controlled south or Venetian-controlled north. His followers included, apart from Albanians, also Slavs, Vlachs, and Greeks. For 25 years, from 1443 to 1468, Skanderbeg's 10,000 man army marched through Ottoman territory winning against consistently larger and better supplied Ottoman forces, for which he was admired. In 1451, he recognized de jure the suzerainty of the Kingdom of Naples through the Treaty of Gaeta, to ensure a protective alliance, although he remained a de facto independent ruler. In 1460-61, he participated in Italy's civil wars in support of Ferdinand I of Naples. In 1463, he became the chief commander of the crusading forces of Pope Pius II, but the Pope died while the armies were still gathering. Together with Venetians he fought against the Ottomans during the Ottoman-Venetian War (1463-79) until his death in January 1468. Skanderbeg's military skills presented a major obstacle to Ottoman expansion, and he was considered by many in western Europe to be a model of Christian resistance against the Ottoman Muslims.

Evrenos

an Ottoman military commander, with an unlikely long-lived career and lifetime. He served as general under Süleyman Pasha, Murad I, Bayezid I, Süleyman Çelebi and Mehmed I Οriginally, Gazi Evrenos was a noble dignitary, a beg in the principality of Karasi, joining the Ottomans only after their conquest of the beylik in 1345. He led many crucial Ottoman campaigns and battles in Bulgaria, Thessaly, and Serbia. After having participated in the Ottoman conquest of Adrianopolis in 1362, Evrenos was appointed to Ucbeyi (Margrave) of Thessaly. He and his akincis fought in the Battle of Kosovo (1389) and the Battle of Nicopolis (1396). Evrenos conquered Keşan, İpsala, Komotini, Feres, Xanthi, Maroneia, Serres, Monastir, and, in 1397, Corinth. He founded the town Yenice-i Vardar, modern Giannitsa.[8] The Greek inhabitants of Gianitsa (Ottoman: Yenice Vardar) down to this century displayed reverence for "Gazi Baba", that is "papa Gazi". As one of the most successful Ottoman commanders, Evrenos acquired a considerable amount of wealth and founded numerous endowments (awqaf). Several monuments attributed to him survive in southeastern Europe. Of primary importance is his mausoleum, or türbe, with its accompanying epitaph in Giannitsa.

Uzun Hasan

the ruler of the Akkoyunlu Empire that during the fifteenth century emerged as a great power in Iran, Iraq, and south-eastern Anatolia. In 1464, Uzun Hasan was in dispute with the Ottoman sultan over the succession to the emir of Karaman, who had died leaving six sons by an Ottoman princess and one, Ishak, by a different mother. In order to block a relative of Mehmed II from the Karamanid succession, Uzun Hasan intervened and established Ishak as emir, at the same time sending an embassy to Venice to propose an anti-Ottoman alliance.