1.
Ghazi (warrior)
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The related word ghazwa is a singulative form meaning a battle or military expedition, often one led by the Islamic prophet Muhammad. In English language literature, the word appears as razzia. In pre-Islamic Bedouin culture, ghazw was a form of limited warfare verging on brigandage that avoided head-on confrontations and instead emphasized raiding and looting, usually of livestock. The word was adopted from ġaziya of Algerian Arabic vernacular and later became a name for any act of pillage. The verbal noun of ġazā is ġazw or ġazawān, with the meaning raiding, a derived singulative in ġazwah refers to a single battle or raid. The term ghāzī dates to at least the Samanid period, where he appears as a mercenary and frontier fighter in Khorasan, later, up to 20,000 of them took part in the Indian campaigns of Mahmud of Ghazni. Ghāzī warriors depended upon plunder for their livelihood, and were prone to brigandage, the corporations into which they organized themselves attracted adventurers, zealots and religious and political dissidents of all ethnicities. In the west, Turkic ghāzīs made continual incursions along the Byzantine frontier zone, the height of the organizations would come during the Mongol conquest when many of them fled from Persia and Turkistan into Anatolia. In an inscription of 1337, Orhan, second ruler of the Ottoman line, describes himself as Sultan, son of the Sultan of the Gazis, the Ottoman poet Ahmedi, writing ca. 1402, defines gazis as the instruments of Gods religion, a servant of God who cleanses the earth from the filth of polytheism, the first nine Ottoman chiefs all used Ghazi as part of their full throne name, and often afterwards. When they won victories in the ghazā in the Balkans they used to send accounts of them as well as slaves, some Muslim rulers personally used the subsidiary style Padshah-i-Ghazi. The first Ghazwa he participated in was the Invasion of Waddan in August 623, when performed within the context of Islamic warfare, the ghazws function was to weaken the enemys defenses in preparation for his eventual conquest and subjugation. Non-Muslims acquired the status of dhimmīs, living under its protection, most Christian sources confuse these two stages in the Ottoman conquests. The Ottomans, however, were careful to abide by these rules, peasants in open country in particular lost nothing by this change. One such source is Averroes Bidāyat al-Mujtahid wa-Nihāyat al-Muqtasid, in the 19th century, Muslim fighters in North Caucasus who were resisting the Russian military operations declared a gazawat against the Russian Orthodox invasion. Although uncertain, it is believed that Dagestani Islamic scholar Muhammad Yaragskii was the ideologist of this holy war, in 1825, a congress of ulema in the village of Yarag declared gazawat against the Russians. Its first leader was Ghazi Muhammad, after his death, Imam Shamil would eventually continue it, during the Second Chechen War, Chechnya announced gazawat against Russia. After the terrorist attacks on Paris in November 2015, the Islamic State group is said to have referred to its actions as ghazwa, probably the most famous use of the term ghazwa is in the phrase Manhattan Raid, used by Al-Qaeda to refer to the September 11th attacks
2.
Osman I
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Osman Gazi, sometimes transliterated archaically as Othman, was 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, the state, while only a small principality during Osmans lifetime, transformed into a world empire in the centuries after his death. It existed until the abolition of the sultanate in 1922, or alternatively the proclamation of the Republic of Turkey in 1923 or the abolition of the caliphate in 1924, due to the scarcity of historical sources dating from his lifetime, very little factual information is known about him. Not a single written source survives from Osmans reign, the Ottomans did not record the history of Osmans life until the fifteenth century, more than a hundred years after his death. Because of this, it is challenging for historians to differentiate between fact and myth in the many stories told about him. One historian has gone so far as to declare it impossible. According to later Ottoman tradition, Osmans ancestors were descendants of the Kayı tribe of Oğuz Turks, the Ottoman principality was just one of many Anatolian beyliks that emerged in the second half of the thirteenth century. Situated in the region of Bithynia, Osmans principality was particularly well-placed to launch attacks on the vulnerable Byzantine Empire, some scholars have argued that Osmans original name was Turkish, probably Atman or Ataman, and was only later changed to the Arabic ʿOsmān. An early Arabic source mentioning him also writes ط rather than ث in one instance, Osman may thus have adopted the more prestigious Muslim name later in his life. He was most likely born around the middle of the century, possibly in 1254/5. According to Ottoman tradition, Osmans father Ertuğrul led the Turkic Kayı tribe west from Central Asia into Anatolia and he then pledged allegiance to the Sultan of the Anatolian Seljuks, who granted him dominion over the town of Söğüt on the Byzantine frontier. This connection between Ertuğrul and the Seljuks, however, was invented by court chroniclers a century later. Osman became chief, or Bey, upon his father’s death, nothing is known for certain about Osmans early activities, except that he controlled the region around the town of Söğüt and from there launched raids against the neighboring Byzantine Empire. The first datable event in Osmans life is the Battle of Bapheus in 1301 or 1302, Osman appears to have followed the strategy of increasing his territories at the expense of the Byzantines while avoiding conflict with his more powerful Turkish neighbors. These early victories and exploits are favorite subjects of Ottoman writers and these legends have been romanticized by the poetical pens which recorded them in later years. The Ottoman writers attached great importance to this legendary, dreamlike conception of the founder of their empire, Osman I had a close relationship with a local religious leader of dervishes named Sheikh Edebali, whose daughter he married. A story emerged among later Ottoman writers to explain the relationship between the two men, in which Osman had a dream while staying in the Sheikhs house. The story appears in the late fifteenth-century chronicle of Aşıkpaşazade as follows, He saw that a moon arose from the holy mans breast, a tree then sprouted from his navel and its shade compassed the world
3.
Murad I
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Murad I was the Ottoman Sultan from 1362 to 1389. He was a son of Orhan and the Valide Nilüfer Hatun, Murad I conquered Adrianople, renamed it to Edirne, and in 1363 made it the new capital of Ottoman Sultanate. Murad I administratively divided his sultanate into the two provinces of Anatolia and Rumelia, Murads death against the Serbs would cause the Ottomans to halt their expansion into the territory temporarily and focus their attention once more on the ailing Byzantine Empire. Murad fought against the powerful beylik of Karaman in Anatolia and against the Serbs, in 1385, Sofia fell to the Ottomans. In 1386 Prince Lazar Hrebeljanović defeated an Ottoman force at the Battle of Pločnik, the Ottoman army suffered heavy casualties, and was unable to capture Niš on the way back. In 1389, Murads army defeated the Serbian Army and its allies under the leadership of Lazar at the Battle of Kosovo, there are different accounts from different sources about when and how Murad I was assassinated. The contemporary sources mainly noted that the battle took place and that both Prince Lazar and the Sultan lost their lives in the battle. The existing evidence of the stories and speculations as to how Murad I died were disseminated and recorded in the 15th century and later. One Western source states that during first hours of the battle, Murad I was assassinated by Serbian nobleman, most Ottoman chroniclers state that he was assassinated after the finish of the battle while going around the battlefield. Others state that he was assassinated in the evening after the battle at his tent by the assassin who was admitted to ask a special favour and his older son Bayezid, who was in charge of the left wing of the Ottoman forces, took charge after that. A letter of Florentine senate to the King Tvrtko I of Bosnia, dated 20 October 1389, a party of twelve Serbian lords slashed their way through the Ottoman lines defending Murad I. One of them, allegedly Miloš Obilić, had managed to get through to the Sultans tent and kill him with sword stabs to the throat and it has been vandalized between 1999-2006 and renovated recently. His other remains were carried to Bursa, his Anatolian capital city and it was Murad who established the former Osmanli tribe into an sultanate. He established the title of sultan in 1383 and the corps of the janissaries and he also organised the government of the Divan, the system of timars and timar-holders and the military judge, the kazasker. He also established the two provinces of Anadolu and Rumeli and he and his ally, Byzantine emperor John V Palaeologus son Andronicus, rebelled against their fathers. Andronicus, who had surrendered to his father, was imprisoned and blinded at Murads insistence, Sultan Bayezid I – son of Gülçiçek Hatun, Yakub Çelebi – son. Bayezid I had Yakub killed during or following the Battle of Kosovo at which their father had been killed, ibrahim Bey, Daughter Nefise Hatun, Murad is the subject of Thomas Goffes play The Courageous Turk, published in 1632. Harris, Jonathan, The End of Byzantium, new Haven and London, Yale University Press,2010
4.
Bursa
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Bursa is a large city in Turkey, located in northwestern Anatolia, within the Marmara Region. It is the fourth most populous city in Turkey and one of the most industrialized metropolitan centres in the country, the city is also the administrative centre of Bursa Province. Bursa was the first major and second overall capital of the Ottoman State between 1335 and 1363, the ski resort of Mount Uludağ towers over it. The mountain was called the Mysian Olympus by the Romans who lived there before, Bursa has rather orderly urban growth and borders a fertile plain. The mausoleums of the early Ottoman sultans are located in Bursa, Bursa also has thermal baths and several museums, including a museum of archaeology. The shadow play characters Karagöz and Hacivat are based on historic personalities who lived and died in Bursa, Bursa is also home to some of the most famous Turkish dishes such as İskender kebap, specially candied marron glacés, peaches and Turkish Delight. Bursa houses the Uludağ University, and its population can claim one of the highest overall levels of education in Turkey, the historic towns of İznik, Mudanya and Zeytinbağı are all situated in Bursa Province. In 2015, Bursa had a population of 2,340,000, the earliest known human settlement near Bursas current location was at Ilıpınar Höyüğü around 5200 BC. It was followed by the ancient Greek city of Cius, which Philip V of Macedon granted to Prusias I, Prusias rebuilt the city and renamed it Prusa. After 128 years of Bithynian rule, Nicomedes IV, the last King of Bithynia, an early Roman Treasure was found in the vicinity of Bursa in the early 20th century. Composed of a womans silver toilet articles, it is now in the British Museum, Bursa became the first major capital city of the early Ottoman Empire following its capture from the Byzantines in 1326. As a result, the city witnessed a considerable amount of growth throughout the 14th century. After conquering Edirne in East Thrace, the Ottomans turned it into the new city in 1363. The Ottoman sultan Bayezid I built the Bayezid Külliyesi in Bursa between 1390 and 1395 and the Ulu Cami between 1396 and 1400, Bursa remained to be the most important administrative and commercial centre in the empire until Mehmed II conquered Constantinople in 1453. The population of Bursa was 45,000 in 1487, during the Ottoman period, Bursa continued to be the source of most royal silk products. Following the foundation of the Republic of Turkey in 1923, Bursa became one of the centres of the country. The economic development of the city was followed by population growth, the most recent arrival of Balkan Turks took place in the 1940s until the 1990s, when the communist regime in Bulgaria expelled approximately 150,000 Bulgarian Turks to Turkey. About one-third of these 150,000 Bulgarian Turkish refugees eventually settled in Bursa, Bursa is settled on the northwestern slopes of Mount Uludağ in the southern Marmara Region
5.
Theodora Kantakouzene, wife of Orhan
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Theodora Kantakouzene was a Byzantine princess, the daughter of Emperor John VI Kantakouzenos and the fifth wife of the Ottoman Sultan Orhan Gazi. After her marriage to Orhan, she became known among the Turks as Maria Hatun, Theodora was one of the three daughters of Emperor John VI Kantakouzenos by his wife Irene Asanina. The historian Nikephoros Gregoras erroneously calls her Maria in one passage, the marriage took place in the summer of the same year. Her parents and sisters escorted her to Selymbria, where Orhans representatives, including grandees of his court and a cavalry regiment, arrived on a fleet of 30 ships. A ceremony was held at Selymbria, where Orhans envoys received her and escorted her to the Ottoman lands in Bithynia, across the Marmara Sea, Theodora remained a Christian after her marriage, and was active in supporting the Christians living under Ottoman rule. In 1347 she gave birth to her son, Şehzade Halil. The Byzantine emperor John V Palaiologos was instrumental in his eventual release, later, Halil married Irene, a daughter of John V Palaiologos and Theodoras sister, Helena Kantakouzene. Except for a sojourn in Constantinople in February 1347, in the aftermath of her fathers victory in the civil war. After that, she returned to Constantinople, where she lived with her sister. She is last known to have been imprisoned at Galata during the brief reign of Andronikos IV Palaiologos there in 1379–81. The Reluctant Emperor, A Biography of John Cantacuzene, Byzantine Emperor and Monk, trapp, Erich, Walther, Rainer, Beyer, Hans-Veit, Sturm-Schnabl, Katja. Vienna, Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften
6.
Orhan
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Orhan Gazi was the second bey of the nascent Ottoman Sultanate from 1323/4 to 1362. He was born in Söğüt, as the son of Osman Gazi, in the early stages of his reign, Orhan focused his energies on conquering most of northwestern Anatolia. The majority of areas were under Byzantine rule and he won his first battle, at Pelekanon. Orhan also occupied the lands of the Karasids of Balıkesir and the Ahis of Ankara, a series of civil wars surrounding the ascension of the nine-year-old emperor John V Palaiologos benefited Orhan greatly. In the Byzantine civil war of 1352–1357, Kantakouzenos used Ottoman forces against John V himself, a major earthquake devastated Gallipoli two years later and Orhans son Süleyman Pasha occupied the town, giving the Ottomans a strong bridgehead into mainland Europe. Orhan was born around 1281, he was the first son of Osman I, Orhans grandfather, Ertugrul Gazi named his grandson after a famous Orhan Alp. Early childhood and adulthood of Orhan are unknown but he grown a very close to his father, in some historical articles, when Orhan was 20 year old, his father sent him in small Ottoman province named Nakihir, but Orhan returned to Ottoman capital Sogut in 1309. Sultan Osman Gazi died in either 1323 or 1324, and Orhan succeeded him, according to Ottoman tradition, when Orhan succeeded his father, he proposed to his brother, Alaeddin, that they should share the emerging empire. The latter refused on the grounds that their father had designated Orhan as sole successor, and he only accepted as his share the revenues of a single village near Bursa. Orhan then told him, Since, my brother, thou will not take the flocks, the word vizier, vezir in the Ottoman language, from Arabic wazīr, meant the bearer of a burden. Alaeddin, in accepting the office, accepted his brothers burden of power, Alaeddin, by his military legislation, may be truly said to have organized victory for the Ottoman dynasty. Orhans predecessors, Ertuğrul and Osman I, had made war at the head of the armed vassals and this army rode on horseback to their princes banner when summoned for each expedition, and were disbanded as soon as the campaign was over. Alaeddin determined to ensure any future success by forming a corps of paid infantry and these troops were called Yaya, or piyade. They were divided into tens, hundreds, and thousands with their commanders and their pay was high, and their pride soon caused their sovereign some anxiety. Orhan wished to provide a check to them, and he took counsel for this purpose with his brother Alaeddin and Kara Khalil Çandarlı, Çandarlı laid before his master and the vizier a project. Out of this arose the renowned corps of Janissaries, which was considered the scourge of the Balkans and Central Europe for a long time, Çandarlı proposed to Orhan to create an army entirely composed of the children of conquered places. Çandarlı argued that, The conquered are the responsibility of the conqueror, who is the ruler of them, of their lands, of their goods, of their wives. We have a right to do, same as what we do with our own, and the treatment which I propose is not only lawful, but benevolent
7.
Turkish language
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Outside of Turkey, significant smaller groups of speakers exist in Germany, Bulgaria, Macedonia, Northern Cyprus, Greece, the Caucasus, and other parts of Europe and Central Asia. Cyprus has requested that the European Union add Turkish as an official EU language, in 1928, as one of Atatürks Reforms in the early years of the Republic of Turkey, the Ottoman Turkish alphabet was replaced with a Latin alphabet. The distinctive characteristics of Turkish are vowel harmony and extensive agglutination, the basic word order of Turkish is subject–object–verb. Turkish has no classes or grammatical gender. Turkish has a strong T–V distinction and usage of honorifics, Turkish uses second-person pronouns that distinguish varying levels of politeness, social distance, age, courtesy or familiarity toward the addressee. The plural second-person pronoun and verb forms are used referring to a person out of respect. Turkic languages belong to the Altaic language group, the Turkic family comprises some 30 living languages spoken across Eastern Europe, Central Asia, and Siberia. Turkish is a member of the Oghuz group of languages, a subgroup of the Turkic language family, there is a high degree of mutual intelligibility between Turkish and the other Oghuz Turkic languages, including Azerbaijani, Turkmen, Qashqai, Gagauz, and Balkan Gagauz Turkish. The earliest known Old Turkic inscriptions are the three monumental Orkhon inscriptions found in modern Mongolia, erected in honour of the prince Kul Tigin and his brother Emperor Bilge Khagan, these date back to the second Turk Kaghanate. The Seljuqs of the Oghuz Turks, in particular, brought their language, following the adoption of Islam c. Turkish literature during the Ottoman period, particularly Divan poetry, was influenced by Persian, including the adoption of poetic meters. One of the tasks of the newly established association was to initiate a reform to replace loanwords of Arabic. By banning the usage of imported words in the press, the association succeeded in removing several hundred words from the language. While most of the words introduced to the language by the TDK were newly derived from Turkic roots, owing to this sudden change in the language, older and younger people in Turkey started to differ in their vocabularies. While the generations born before the 1940s tend to use the terms of Arabic or Persian origin. The past few decades have seen the work of the TDK to coin new Turkish words to express new concepts and technologies as they enter the language. Many of these new words, particularly information technology terms, have received widespread acceptance, however, the TDK is occasionally criticized for coining words which sound contrived and artificial. Some earlier changes—such as bölem to replace fırka, political party—also failed to meet with popular approval, some words restored from Old Turkic have taken on specialized meanings, for example betik is now used to mean script in computer science
8.
Dynasty
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A dynasty is a sequence of rulers from the same family, usually in the context of a feudal or monarchical system but sometimes also appearing in elective republics. The dynastic family or lineage may be known as a house, historians periodize the histories of many sovereign states, such as Ancient Egypt, the Carolingian Empire and Imperial China, using a framework of successive dynasties. As such, the dynasty may be used to delimit the era during which the family reigned and to describe events, trends. The word dynasty itself is often dropped from such adjectival references, until the 19th century, it was taken for granted that a legitimate function of a monarch was to aggrandize his dynasty, that is, to increase the territory, wealth, and power of his family members. The longest-surviving dynasty in the world is the Imperial House of Japan, dynasties throughout the world have traditionally been reckoned patrilineally, such as under the Frankish Salic law. Succession through a daughter when permitted was considered to establish a new dynasty in her husbands ruling house, however, some states in Africa, determined descent matrilineally, while rulers have at other times adopted the name of their mothers dynasty when coming into her inheritance. It is also extended to unrelated people such as poets of the same school or various rosters of a single sports team. The word dynasty derives via Latin dynastia from Greek dynastéia, where it referred to power, dominion and it was the abstract noun of dynástēs, the agent noun of dynamis, power or ability, from dýnamai, to be able. A ruler in a dynasty is referred to as a dynast. For example, following his abdication, Edward VIII of the United Kingdom ceased to be a member of the House of Windsor. A dynastic marriage is one that complies with monarchical house law restrictions, the marriage of Willem-Alexander, Prince of Orange, to Máxima Zorreguieta in 2002 was dynastic, for example, and their eldest child is expected to inherit the Dutch crown eventually. But the marriage of his younger brother Prince Friso to Mabel Wisse Smit in 2003 lacked government support, thus Friso forfeited his place in the order of succession, lost his title as a Prince of the Netherlands, and left his children without dynastic rights. In historical and monarchist references to formerly reigning families, a dynast is a member who would have had succession rights, were the monarchys rules still in force. Even since abolition of the Austrian monarchy, Max and his descendants have not been considered the rightful pretenders by Austrian monarchists, nor have they claimed that position. The term dynast is sometimes used only to refer to descendants of a realms monarchs. The term can therefore describe overlapping but distinct sets of people, yet he is not a male-line member of the royal family, and is therefore not a dynast of the House of Windsor. Thus, in 1999 he requested and obtained permission from Elizabeth II to marry the Roman Catholic Princess Caroline of Monaco. Yet a clause of the English Act of Settlement 1701 remained in effect at that time and that exclusion, too, ceased to apply on 26 March 2015, with retroactive effect for those who had been dynasts prior to triggering it by marriage to a Catholic
9.
Ottoman dynasty
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The Ottoman dynasty was made up of the members of the imperial House of Osman. According to Ottoman tradition, the family originated from the Kayı tribe branch of the Oghuz Turks, the Ottoman dynasty, named after Osman I, ruled the Ottoman Empire from c.1299 to 1922. During much of the Empires history, the sultan was the regent, head of state. The imperial family was deposed from power and the sultanate was abolished on 1 November 1922 after the Turkish War of Independence, the Republic of Turkey was declared the following year. The living members of the dynasty were sent into exile as persona non gratae, though some have been allowed to return. In its current form, the family is known as the Osmanoğlu family, before Orhans proclamation of the dynasty, the tribe was known as the Bilecik Söğüt Beylik or Beys but was renamed Osmanlı in honor of Osman. The Ottoman dynasty is known in modern Turkish as Osmanlı Hanedanı, meaning House of Osman, in Ottoman Turkish it was known as Hanedan-ı Âl-i Osman, thus they still formally acknowledged the sovereignty of the Seljuk Empire and its successor, the Seljuk Sultanate of Rûm. The first Ottoman ruler to claim the title of Sultan was Murad I. The holder of the title Sultan was in Arabic-Islamic dynasties originally the power behind the throne of the Caliph in Bagdad, the Ottoman sultans also claimed the title of Caliph starting with Murad I, who transformed the Ottoman state into a transcontinental empire. With the Conquest of Constantinople in 1453, Sultan Mehmed II Fatih claimed the title Kaysar-i-Rûm Emperor of Rome and he appointed the Patriarch of Constantinople Gennadius Scholarius, whom he protected and whose status he elevated into leader of all the Eastern Orthodox Christians. As Emperor of Rome he laid claim to all Roman territories, Sultan Mehmed II also took the title of Padishah, a Persian title meaning Master of Kings and ranking as Emperor, claiming superiority among the other kings. He was the first Ottoman ruler to adopt the title of Padishah. The Ottoman claim to caliphate was strengthened when they defeated the Mamluks in 1517, as the empire grew, sultans adopted secondary titles expressing the empires claim to be the legitimate successor of the absorbed states. Furthermore, they tended to enumerate even regular provinces, not unlike the long lists of -mainly inherited- feudal titles in the style of many Christian European monarchs. Some early Ottoman Sultans even had to accept the status in the eyes of a foreign overlord. However, the Ottoman Caliphate too was abolished soon afterwards, and Abdulmecid II was utterly deposed and expelled from Turkey with the rest of the Ottoman dynasty on 3 March 1924
10.
Malhun Hatun
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Malhun Hatun was the first wife of Osman I, the leader of the Ottoman Turks and the founder of the dynasty that established and ruled the Ottoman Empire. She was the mother of the next and second ruler of the Ottoman State and it has been recognized by many historians that she was the daughter of the Anatolian Turkish Bey, Ömer Bey, although there had been some speculations that she was the daughter of Sheikh Edebali. Other sources say that she was the daughter of Ömer Abdülaziz Bey, the title bey, used by the princely dynasties of Anatolia, suggests that Mal Hatuns father was a person of some status and authority. One possibility is that he was the ruler of an Amouri principality. The Amouri are described by the Byzantine historian George Pachymeres, who says that a son of Umar fought with Osman in one of his first raids against local Byzantine lords. The Ottomans, according to Pachymeres, went on to assume the role played by Amouri until their demise as the aggressor against the Byzantines in the northwest Anatolia. If Pachymeress report is correct, the timing and the context are appropriate for a marriage between Osman and Umar Beys daughter. Mal Hatun has a role in the legendary Osmans Dream, depicting Osmans great love for her. The account is, however, considered to have been composed centuries later, the Imperial Harem, Women and Sovereignty in the Ottoman Empire, Oxford University Press,1993, ISBN 0-19-508677-5. Bahadıroğlu, Yavuz, Resimli Osmanlı Tarihi, Nesil Yayınları, 15th Ed
11.
Sunni Islam
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Sunni Islam is the largest group of Islam. Its name comes from the word Sunnah, referring to the behavior of the Islamic prophet Muhammad. According to Sunni tradition, Muhammad did not clearly designate a successor and this contrasts with the Shia view, which holds that Muhammad intended his son-in-law and cousin Ali ibn Abi Talib to succeed him. Political tensions between Sunnis and Shias continued with varying intensity throughout Islamic history and they have been exacerbated in recent times by ethnic conflicts, as of 2009, Sunni Muslims constituted between 87–90% of the worlds Muslim population. Sunni Islam is the worlds largest religious denomination, followed by Catholicism and its adherents are referred to in Arabic as ahl as-sunnah wa l-jamāʻah or ahl as-sunnah for short. In English, its doctrines and practices are sometimes called Sunnism, while adherents are known as Sunni Muslims, Sunnis, Sunnites, Sunni Islam is sometimes referred to as orthodox Islam. The Quran, together with hadith and binding juristic consensus form the basis of all traditional jurisprudence within Sunni Islam, sunnī, also commonly referred to as Sunnīism, is a term derived from sunnah meaning habit, usual practice, custom, tradition. The Muslim use of this term refers to the sayings and living habits of the prophet Muhammad, in Arabic, this branch of Islam is referred to as ahl as-sunnah wa l-jamāʻah, the people of the sunnah and the community, which is commonly shortened to ahl as-sunnah. One common mistake is to assume that Sunni Islam represents a normative Islam that emerged during the period after Muhammads death, and that Sufism and Shiism developed out of Sunni Islam. This perception is due to the reliance on highly ideological sources that have been accepted as reliable historical works. Both Sunnism and Shiaism are the end products of centuries of competition between ideologies. Both sects used each other to further cement their own identities and doctrines, the first four caliphs are known among Sunnis as the Rashidun or Rightly-Guided Ones. Sunni recognition includes the aforementioned Abu Bakr as the first, Umar who established the Islamic calendar as the second, Uthman as the third, Sunnis believe that the companions of Muhammad were the best of Muslims. Support for this view is found in the Quran, according to Sunnis. Sunnis also believe that the companions were true believers since it was the companions who were given the task of compiling the Quran, furthermore, narrations that were narrated by the companions are considered by Sunnis to be a second source of knowledge of the Muslim faith. A study conducted by the Pew Research Center in 2010 and released January 2011 found that there are 1.62 billion Muslims around the world, Islam does not have a formal hierarchy or clergy. Leaders are informal, and gain influence through study to become a scholar of Islamic law, according to the Islamic Center of Columbia, South Carolina, anyone with the intelligence and the will can become an Islamic scholar. During Midday Mosque services on Fridays, the congregation will choose a person to lead the service
12.
Tughra
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A tughra is a calligraphic monogram, seal or signature of a sultan that was affixed to all official documents and correspondence. It was also carved on his seal and stamped on the coins minted during his reign, the tughra was designed at the beginning of the sultans reign and drawn by the court calligrapher or nişancı on written documents. The first tughra belonged to Orhan I, the ruler of the Ottoman Empire. Tughras served a similar to the cartouche in ancient Egypt or the Royal Cypher of British monarchs. Every Ottoman sultan had his own individual tughra, the tughra has a characteristic form, two loops on the left side, three vertical lines in the middle, stacked writing on the bottom and two extensions to the right. Each of these elements has a meaning, and together they make up the form that is easily recognizable as a tughra. The name of the sultan is written out in the bottom section, depending on the period, this name can be as simple as Orhan, son of Osman in the first tughra in 1326. In later periods honorifics and prayers are added to the name of the tughra holder. The loops to the left of the tughra are called beyze, the vertical lines on the top of the tughra are called tuğ, or flagstaff. The lines to the right of the tughra are called hançer and signify a sword, symbol of power and might. Although the tughra is largely identified with the Ottoman Sultans, they have sometimes been used in other Turkic states, such as the Qajar dynasty, Safavid Empire. Later, tughras were used among the Tatars of Imperial Russia, there are modern artists of calligraphy that use the characteristic tughra form today. Examples are the tughras of Russian president Vladimir Putin and Akihito, the Emperor of Japan, created by artist Vladimir Popov
13.
Ottoman Turkish alphabet
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The Ottoman Turkish alphabet is a version of the Perso-Arabic alphabet used to write Ottoman Turkish until 1928, when it was replaced by the Latin-based modern Turkish alphabet. Though Ottoman Turkish was primarily written in script, non-Muslim Ottoman subjects sometimes wrote it in other scripts, including the Armenian, Greek, Latin. The earliest known Turkic alphabet is the Orkhon script, the various Turkic languages have been written in a number of different alphabets, including Cyrillic, Arabic, Greek, Latin, and some other Asiatic writing systems. The Ottoman Turkish alphabet is a Turkish form of the Perso-Arabic script, well suited to writing Arabic and Persian borrowings, it was poorly suited to native Turkish words. The Arabic script had been designed to write Arabic, and while it was serviceable for Persian, it is quite inadequate at representing Turkish phonemes, still, Turkic languages such as Azerbaijani and Uzbek continue to be written using Arabic script in Iran, Afghanistan, and Iraq. The introduction of the telegraph and the press in the 19th century exposed further weaknesses in the Arabic script. Some Turkish reformers promoted the Latin script well before Atatürks reforms, in 1862, during an earlier period of reform, the statesman Münuf Pasha advocated a reform of the alphabet. At the start of the 20th century, similar proposals were made by writers associated with the Young Turk movement, including Hüseyin Cahit, Abdullah Cevdet. The issue was raised again in 1923 during the İzmir Economic Congress of the new Turkish Republic, a move away from the Arabic script was strongly opposed by conservative and religious elements. It was argued that Romanization of the script would detach Turkey from the wider Islamic world, others opposed Romanization on practical grounds, as was no suitable adaptation of the Latin script that could be used for Turkish phonemes. Some suggested that a better alternative might be to modify the Arabic script to introduce characters for better representing Turkish vowels. In 1926, the Turkic republics of the Soviet Union adopted the Latin script, Ottoman Turkish script was replaced by the Latin-based new Turkish alphabet. Its use became compulsory in all communications in 1929. The change was formalized by the Law on the Adoption and Implementation of the Turkish Alphabet, passed on November 1,1928, as with Arabic and Persian, texts in the Ottoman Turkish alphabet are written right to left. The appearance of a letter changes depending on its position in a word, isolated, final, medial, some letters cannot be joined to the left and so do not possess separate medial and initial forms. In medial position, the form is used. In initial position, the form is used. In most texts, kef, gef, and sağır kef are written identically although one Ottoman variant of gef has a mini-kaf of ﻙ as well as the doubled upper stroke of گ
14.
Arabic alphabet
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The Arabic alphabet or Arabic abjadiyah is the Arabic script as it is codified for writing the Arabic language. It is written right to left, in a cursive style. Originally, the alphabet was an abjad consisting only of consonants, as with other abjads, such as the Hebrew alphabet, scribes later devised means of indicating vowel sounds by separate vowel points. The basic Arabic alphabet contains 28 letters, there are no distinct upper and lower case letter forms. Many letters look similar but are distinguished from one another by dots above or below their central part and these dots are an integral part of a letter, since they distinguish between letters that represent different sounds. For example, the Arabic letters transliterated as b and t have the basic shape, but b has one dot below, ب. Both printed and written Arabic are cursive, with most of the letters within a word connected to the adjacent letters. There are two main collating sequences for the Arabic alphabet, abjad and hija, in this order, letters are also used as numbers, Abjad numerals, and possess the same alphanumeric code/cipher as Hebrew gematria and Greek isopsephy. The hijā’ī or alifbā’ī order, used where lists of names and words are sorted, as in phonebooks, classroom lists, and dictionaries, groups letters by similarity of shape. Loss of sameḵ was compensated for by the split of shin ש into two independent Arabic letters, ش and ﺱ which moved up to take the place of sameḵ, the six other letters that do not correspond to any north Semitic letter are placed at the end. This is commonly vocalized as follows, abjad hawwaz ḥuṭṭī kalaman sa‘faṣ qarashat thakhadh ḍaẓagh, the hijā’ī order is never used as numerals. Another kind of order was used widely in the Maghreb until recently when it was replaced by the Mashriqi order. The Arabic alphabet is always cursive and letters vary in shape depending on their position within a word, letters can exhibit up to four distinct forms corresponding to an initial, medial, final, or isolated position. While some letters show considerable variations, others remain almost identical across all four positions, generally, letters in the same word are linked together on both sides by short horizontal lines, but six letters can only be linked to their preceding letter. For example, أرارات has only isolated forms because each letter cannot be connected to its following one, in addition, some letter combinations are written as ligatures, notably lām-alif. Notes See the article Romanization of Arabic for details on various schemes, however. Also names are transcribed as pronounced locally, not as pronounced in Literary Arabic. Regarding pronunciation, the values given are those of Modern Standard Arabic
15.
Ottoman Empire
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After 1354, the Ottomans crossed into Europe, and with the conquest of the Balkans the Ottoman Beylik was transformed into a transcontinental empire. The Ottomans ended the Byzantine Empire with the 1453 conquest of Constantinople by Mehmed the Conqueror, at the beginning of the 17th century the empire contained 32 provinces and numerous vassal states. Some of these were later absorbed into the Ottoman Empire, while others were granted various types of autonomy during the course of centuries. With Constantinople as its capital and control of lands around the Mediterranean basin, while the empire was once thought to have entered a period of decline following the death of Suleiman the Magnificent, this view is no longer supported by the majority of academic historians. The empire continued to maintain a flexible and strong economy, society, however, during a long period of peace from 1740 to 1768, the Ottoman military system fell behind that of their European rivals, the Habsburg and Russian Empires. While the Empire was able to hold its own during the conflict, it was struggling with internal dissent. Starting before World War I, but growing increasingly common and violent during it, major atrocities were committed by the Ottoman government against the Armenians, Assyrians and Pontic Greeks. The word Ottoman is an anglicisation of the name of Osman I. Osmans name in turn was the Turkish form of the Arabic name ʿUthmān, in Ottoman Turkish, the empire was referred to as Devlet-i ʿAlīye-yi ʿOsmānīye, or alternatively ʿOsmānlı Devleti. In Modern Turkish, it is known as Osmanlı İmparatorluğu or Osmanlı Devleti, the Turkish word for Ottoman originally referred to the tribal followers of Osman in the fourteenth century, and subsequently came to be used to refer to the empires military-administrative elite. In contrast, the term Turk was used to refer to the Anatolian peasant and tribal population, the term Rūmī was also used to refer to Turkish-speakers by the other Muslim peoples of the empire and beyond. In Western Europe, the two names Ottoman Empire and Turkey were often used interchangeably, with Turkey being increasingly favored both in formal and informal situations and this dichotomy was officially ended in 1920–23, when the newly established Ankara-based Turkish government chose Turkey as the sole official name. Most scholarly historians avoid the terms Turkey, Turks, and Turkish when referring to the Ottomans, as the power of the Seljuk Sultanate of Rum declined in the 13th century, Anatolia was divided into a patchwork of independent Turkish principalities known as the Anatolian Beyliks. One of these beyliks, in the region of Bithynia on the frontier of the Byzantine Empire, was led by the Turkish tribal leader Osman, osmans early followers consisted both of Turkish tribal groups and Byzantine renegades, many but not all converts to Islam. Osman extended the control of his principality by conquering Byzantine towns along the Sakarya River and it is not well understood how the early Ottomans came to dominate their neighbours, due to the scarcity of the sources which survive from this period. One school of thought which was popular during the twentieth century argued that the Ottomans achieved success by rallying religious warriors to fight for them in the name of Islam, in the century after the death of Osman I, Ottoman rule began to extend over Anatolia and the Balkans. Osmans son, Orhan, captured the northwestern Anatolian city of Bursa in 1326 and this conquest meant the loss of Byzantine control over northwestern Anatolia. The important city of Thessaloniki was captured from the Venetians in 1387, the Ottoman victory at Kosovo in 1389 effectively marked the end of Serbian power in the region, paving the way for Ottoman expansion into Europe
16.
Anatolia
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Anatolia, in geography known as Asia Minor, Asian Turkey, Anatolian peninsula, or Anatolian plateau, is the westernmost protrusion of Asia, which makes up the majority of modern-day Turkey. The region is bounded by the Black Sea to the north, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, the Sea of Marmara forms a connection between the Black and Aegean Seas through the Bosphorus and Dardanelles straits and separates Anatolia from Thrace on the European mainland. Traditionally, Anatolia is considered to extend in the east to a line between the Gulf of Alexandretta and the Black Sea to the Armenian Highlands, thus, traditionally Anatolia is the territory that comprises approximately the western two-thirds of the Asian part of Turkey. The Turkification of Anatolia began under the Seljuk Empire in the late 11th century, however, various non-Turkic languages continue to be spoken by minorities in Anatolia today, including Kurdish, Assyrian, Armenian, Arabic, Laz, Georgian, and Greek. Traditionally, Anatolia is considered to extend in the east to a line running from the Gulf of Alexandretta to the Black Sea. This traditional geographical definition is used, for example, in the latest edition of Merriam-Websters Geographical Dictionary, under this definition, Anatolia is bounded to the east by the Armenian Highlands, and the Euphrates before that river bends to the southeast to enter Mesopotamia. To the southeast, it is bounded by the ranges that separate it from the Orontes valley in Syria, the first name the Greeks used for the Anatolian peninsula was Ἀσία, presumably after the name of the Assuwa league in western Anatolia. As the name of Asia came to be extended to areas east of the Mediterranean. The name Anatolia derives from the Greek ἀνατολή meaning “the East” or more literally “sunrise”, the precise reference of this term has varied over time, perhaps originally referring to the Aeolian, Ionian and Dorian colonies on the west coast of Asia Minor. In the Byzantine Empire, the Anatolic Theme was a theme covering the western, the modern Turkish form of Anatolia is Anadolu, which again derives from the Greek name Aνατολή. The Russian male name Anatoly and the French Anatole share the same linguistic origin, in English the name of Turkey for ancient Anatolia first appeared c. It is derived from the Medieval Latin Turchia, which was used by the Europeans to define the Seljuk controlled parts of Anatolia after the Battle of Manzikert. Human habitation in Anatolia dates back to the Paleolithic, neolithic Anatolia has been proposed as the homeland of the Indo-European language family, although linguists tend to favour a later origin in the steppes north of the Black Sea. However, it is clear that the Anatolian languages, the oldest branch of Indo-European, have spoken in Anatolia since at least the 19th century BC. The earliest historical records of Anatolia stem from the southeast of the region and are from the Mesopotamian-based Akkadian Empire during the reign of Sargon of Akkad in the 24th century BC, scholars generally believe the earliest indigenous populations of Anatolia were the Hattians and Hurrians. The region was famous for exporting raw materials, and areas of Hattian-, one of the numerous cuneiform records dated circa 20th century BC, found in Anatolia at the Assyrian colony of Kanesh, uses an advanced system of trading computations and credit lines. They were speakers of an Indo-European language, the Hittite language, originating from Nesa, they conquered Hattusa in the 18th century BC, imposing themselves over Hattian- and Hurrian-speaking populations. According to the most widely accepted Kurgan theory on the Proto-Indo-European homeland, however, the Hittites adopted the cuneiform script, invented in Mesopotamia
17.
Byzantine Empire
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It survived the fragmentation and fall of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century AD and continued to exist for an additional thousand years until it fell to the Ottoman Turks in 1453. During most of its existence, the empire was the most powerful economic, cultural, several signal events from the 4th to 6th centuries mark the period of transition during which the Roman Empires Greek East and Latin West divided. Constantine I reorganised the empire, made Constantinople the new capital, under Theodosius I, Christianity became the Empires official state religion and other religious practices were proscribed. Finally, under the reign of Heraclius, the Empires military, the borders of the Empire evolved significantly over its existence, as it went through several cycles of decline and recovery. During the reign of Maurice, the Empires eastern frontier was expanded, in a matter of years the Empire lost its richest provinces, Egypt and Syria, to the Arabs. This battle opened the way for the Turks to settle in Anatolia, the Empire recovered again during the Komnenian restoration, such that by the 12th century Constantinople was the largest and wealthiest European city. Despite the eventual recovery of Constantinople in 1261, the Byzantine Empire remained only one of several small states in the area for the final two centuries of its existence. Its remaining territories were annexed by the Ottomans over the 15th century. The Fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Empire in 1453 finally ended the Byzantine Empire, the term comes from Byzantium, the name of the city of Constantinople before it became Constantines capital. This older name of the city would rarely be used from this point onward except in historical or poetic contexts. The publication in 1648 of the Byzantine du Louvre, and in 1680 of Du Canges Historia Byzantina further popularised the use of Byzantine among French authors, however, it was not until the mid-19th century that the term came into general use in the Western world. The Byzantine Empire was known to its inhabitants as the Roman Empire, the Empire of the Romans, Romania, the Roman Republic, Graikia, and also as Rhōmais. The inhabitants called themselves Romaioi and Graikoi, and even as late as the 19th century Greeks typically referred to modern Greek as Romaika and Graikika. The authority of the Byzantine emperor as the legitimate Roman emperor was challenged by the coronation of Charlemagne as Imperator Augustus by Pope Leo III in the year 800. No such distinction existed in the Islamic and Slavic worlds, where the Empire was more seen as the continuation of the Roman Empire. In the Islamic world, the Roman Empire was known primarily as Rûm, the Roman army succeeded in conquering many territories covering the entire Mediterranean region and coastal regions in southwestern Europe and north Africa. These territories were home to different cultural groups, both urban populations and rural populations. The West also suffered heavily from the instability of the 3rd century AD
18.
Battle of Pelekanon
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The Byzantine army was defeated, with no further attempt made at relieving the cities in Anatolia under Ottoman siege. Recently the Turks had captured the important city of Prusa in Bythinia, Andronicus decided to relieve the important besieged cities of Nicomedia and Nicaea and hopefully restore the frontier to a stable position. Together with the Grand Domestic John Cantacuzene, Andronicus led an army of about 4,000 men, at Pelekanon, a Turkish army led by Orhan I had encamped on the hills to gain a strategic advantage and blocked the road to Nicomedia. On 10 June, Orhan sent 300 cavalry archers downhill to lure the Byzantines unto the hills, but these were driven off by the Byzantines, who were unwilling to advance further. Then belligerent armies engaged in a couple of indecisive clashes until nightfall and the Byzantine army prepared to retreat, both Andronicus and Cantacuzene were lightly wounded, while rumors spread that the Emperor had either been killed or mortally wounded, resulting in panic. Eventually the retreat turned into a rout with heavy casualties on the Byzantine side, Cantacuzene led the remaining Byzantine soldiers back to Constantinople by sea. The Battle of Pelekanon was the first engagement in which a Byzantine Emperor encountered an Ottoman Bey, a campaign of restoration was aborted. Never again did a Byzantine army attempt to regain territory in Asia, the former imperial capitals of Nicomedia and Nicaea were not relieved and the maintenance of Imperial control across the Bosphorus was no longer tenable. The Ottomans conquered Nicaea in 1331 and Nicomedia in 1337, thus building up a base from which they eventually swept away the Byzantine Empire as a whole. The inhabitants of Nicaea and Nicomedia were quickly and willingly incorporated into the growing Ottoman nation, with the capture of these cities and the annexation of the Beylik of Karasi in 1336, the Ottomans had completed their conquest of Bythinia and the north-western corner of Anatolia. The Late Byzantine Army, Arms and Society, 1204-1453, University of Pennsylvania Press,1997, a History of the BYzantine State and Society, Stanford University Press,1997
19.
Andronikos III Palaiologos
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Andronikos III Palaiologos, commonly Latinized as Andronicus III Palaeologus, was Byzantine emperor from 1328 to 1341. Born Andronikos Doukas Angelos Komnenos Palaiologos, he was the son of Michael IX Palaiologos and he was proclaimed co-emperor in his youth, before 1313, and in April 1321 he rebelled in opposition to his grandfather, Andronikos II Palaiologos. He was formally crowned co-emperor on February 1325, before ousting his grandfather outright and his early death left a power vacuum that resulted in the disastrous civil war between his Empress-dowager, Anna of Savoy, and his closest friend and supporter, John VI Kantakouzenos. Andronikos was born in Constantinople on 25 March 1297, the 38th birthday of his paternal grandfather and his father, Michael IX Palaiologos, began reigning in full imperial style as co-emperor circa 1295. In March 1318, Andronikos married Irene of Brunswick, daughter of Henry I, in circa 1321 she gave birth to a son, who died in infancy. In 1320, Andronikos accidentally caused the death of his brother Manuel, after which their father, co-emperor Michael IX Palaiologos, Emperor Andronikos II disowned his grandson Andronikos, who then fled the capital and rallied his supporters in Thrace and began to reign as rival emperor in 1321. Andronikos then waged the intermittent Byzantine civil war of 1321–28 against his reigning grandfather, empress Irene died on 16/17 August 1324 with no surviving child. Theodora Palaiologina, sister of Andronikos III, married the new tsar Michael Shishman of Bulgaria in 1324, Andronikos III, then a widower, married Anna of Savoy in October 1326. In 1327 she gave birth to Maria Palaiologina, Andronikos III concluded the Treaty of Chernomen of 1327, an alliance with tsar Michael Shishman of Bulgaria against Stephen Uroš III Dečanski of Serbia. The Byzantine civil war flared again and ultimately led to the deposition in 1328 of Emperor Andronikos II, Ottoman Turks besieged Nicaea in Asia Minor, historically the provisional capital of the Byzantine Empire from the Fourth Crusade until the Byzantine recapture of Constantinople. Andronikos III launched an attempt, which Ottoman sultan Orhan defeated at the Battle of Pelekanon on 10 or 15 June 1329. Nevertheless, Andronikos III effected the recovery of Lordship of Chios from Martino Zaccaria in a naval battle, an alliance with Bulgaria failed to secure any gains for the Byzantine empire. On 28 July 1330, the Serbians decisively defeated the Bulgarians in the Battle of Velbazhd without significant Byzantine participation, the Ottomans continued to advance in 1331, finally taking Nicaea. Andronikos III wanted Nicomedia and the other few Byzantine forts in Anatolia not to suffer the same fate, Andronikos III reorganized and attempted to strengthen the weakened Byzantine navy, which comprised only 10 ships by 1332, in emergencies, he still could muster a hundred extra merchant ships. The Muslim traveler Ibn Battuta visited Constantinople towards the end of 1332, Byzantine sources do not attest to the meeting. Stephen Gabrielopoulos, ruler over Thessaly, died circa 1333, taking advantage of the secession crisis, Syrgiannes Palaiologos, entrusted with the governorship of Thessalonica, deserted to the side of king Stephen Uroš IV Dušan of Serbia and aided their advance in Macedonia. He led the Serbians to take Kastoria, Ohrid, Prilep, Strumica, Byzantine general Sphrantzes Palaiologos, posing as a deserter, entered the Serbian camp and killed Syrgiannes Palaiologos, ending his advance and bringing the Serbian army into disarray. In August 1334, the king of Serbia made peace with Andronikos III, Andronikos III meanwhile effected the recovery of Phocaea in 1334 from the last Genoese governor, Domenico Cattaneo
20.
Karasids
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The Karasids or Karasid dynasty, also known as the Principality of Karasi and Beylik of Karasi, was an Anatolian beylik in the area of classical Mysia from ca. It was centered in Balıkesir and Bergama, and was one of the frontier established by Oghuz Turks after the decline of the Seljuk Sultanate of Rum. They became a power in the Aegean and the Dardanelles. They were the first beylik to be taken over by the neighboring Osmanoglu dynasty, the acquisition of Karasi allowed the Ottomans to begin the conquest of European lands in Rumelia across the Dardanelles. The province of Balıkesir was called the sub-province of Karasi until the years of the Republic of Turkey. List of Sunni Muslim dynasties Clifford E. Bosworth, The New Islamic Dynasties,1996, the Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition, s. v
21.
Ankara
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Ankara, formerly known as Ancyra and Angora, is the capital of the Republic of Turkey. With a population of 4,587,558 in the center and 5,150,072 in its province. Ankara was Atatürks headquarters from 1920 and has been the capital of the Republic since its founding in 1923, the government is a prominent employer, but Ankara is also an important commercial and industrial city, located at the center of Turkeys road and railway networks. The city gave its name to the Angora wool shorn from Angora rabbits, the long-haired Angora goat, the area is also known for its pears, honey, and muscat grapes. Ankara is an old city with various Hittite, Phrygian, Hellenistic, Roman, Byzantine. The historical center of town is a hill rising 150 m over the left bank of the Ankara Çayı, a tributary of the Sakarya River. The hill remains crowned by the ruins of the old citadel, as with many ancient cities, Ankara has gone by several names over the ages. It has been identified with the Hittite cult center Ankuwaš, although remains a matter of debate. In classical antiquity and during the period, the city was known as Ánkyra in Greek and Ancyra in Latin. Following its annexation by the Seljuk Turks in 1073, the city known in many European languages as Angora. The form Angora is preserved in the names of breeds of different kinds of animals. The oldest settlements in and around the city center of Ankara belonged to the Hattic civilization which existed during the Bronze Age and was gradually absorbed c, 2000–1700 BC by the Indo-European Hittites. In Phrygian tradition, King Midas was venerated as the founder of Ancyra, but Pausanias mentions that the city was far older. Persian sovereignty lasted until the Persians defeat at the hands of Alexander the Great who conquered the city in 333 BC, Alexander came from Gordion to Ankara and stayed in the city for a short period. After his death at Babylon in 323 BC and the subsequent division of his empire among his generals, Ankara, by that time the city also took its name Ἄγκυρα which, in slightly modified form, provides the modern name of Ankara. Other centers were Pessinos, todays Balhisar, for the Trocmi tribe, the city was then known as Ancyra. The Celtic element was probably relatively small in numbers, an aristocracy which ruled over Phrygian-speaking peasants. However, the Celtic language continued to be spoken in Galatia for many centuries
22.
John V Palaiologos
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John V Palaiologos or Palaeologus was a Byzantine emperor, who succeeded his father in 1341 at age eight. John V was the son of Emperor Andronikos III and his wife Anna and his long reign was marked by the gradual dissolution of imperial power amid numerous civil wars and the continuing ascendancy of the Ottoman Turks. John V came to the throne at age eight, during this civil war in 1343 Anna pawned the Byzantine crown jewels for 30,000 Venetian ducats. From 1346 to 1349, the Black Plague devastated Constantinople, victorious in 1347, John Kantakouzenos ruled as co-emperor until his son Matthew was attacked by John V in 1352, leading to a second civil war. John V asked the ruler of Serbia, Stefan Dušan for help, the Ottoman Empire thus acquired its first European territory, at Çimpe and Gallipoli. Able to retake Constantinople in 1354, John V removed and tonsured John VI, by 1357, he had deposed Matthew as well, the Ottomans, who had been allied with the Kantakouzenoi, continued to press John. Suleyman Paşa, the son of the Ottoman sultan, led their forces in Europe and was able to take Adrianople and Philippopolis and to exact tribute from the emperor. John V appealed to the West for help, proposing to end the schism between the Byzantine and Latin churches by submitting the patriarchate to the supremacy of Rome. In 1366, John V reached the Hungarian Kingdom, arriving at the Royal city of Buda to meet King Louis I of Hungary, however, the Byzantine emperor offended the king by staying on his horse, while Louis descended and approached him on foot. The Hungarian monarch then offered him help on the condition that John change his confession to the catholic, the Emperor left the court of Buda with empty hands and continued his trip throughout Europe searching for assistance against the Ottomans. Impoverished by war, he was detained as a debtor when he visited Venice in 1369 and was captured on his way back in Bulgarian territories. In 1371, he recognized the suzerainty of the Ottoman sultan Murad I, Murad later assisted him against his son Andronikos when the latter deposed him in 1376. In 1390, his grandson John VII briefly usurped the throne, the same year, John ordered the strengthening of the Golden Gate in Constantinople, utilizing marble from the decayed churches in and around the city. Upon completion of construction, Bayezid I demanded that John raze these new works, threatening war and the blinding of his son Manuel. John V filled the Sultans order but is said to have suffered from this humiliation, John V was finally succeeded to the imperial throne by his son Manuel. His younger son Theodore had already acceded to the Despotate of Morea in 1383, John V married Helena Kantakouzene, daughter of his co-emperor John VI Kantakouzenos and Irene Asanina, on 28 May 1347. They had at least six children -- four sons and at least two daughters and their known children include, Andronikos IV Palaiologos, Irene Palaiologina, who married her first cousin Prince Halil of Ottoman Empire, son of Orhan I and Helenas sister Theodora Kantakouzene. The couple had two sons, Princes Gunduz and Omer, list of Byzantine emperors Harris, Jonathan, The End of Byzantium
23.
John VI Kantakouzenos
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John VI Kantakouzenos, Cantacuzenus, or Cantacuzene was a Greek nobleman, statesman, and general. He served as Grand Domestic under Andronikos III Palaiologos and regent for John V Palaiologos before reigning as Byzantine emperor in his own right from 1347 to 1354. Usurped by his ward, he retired to a monastery under the name Joasaph Christodoulos and spent the remainder of his life as a monk. Through his mother Theodora Palaiologina Angelina, he was related to the house of Palaiologos. He was also related to the dynasty through his wife Eirene Asanina. Kantakouzenos became a friend to Andronikos III and was one of his principal supporters in Andronikoss struggle against his grandfather. On the accession of Andronikos III in 1328, he was entrusted with the administration of affairs. He was named regent to Andronikoss successor, the 9-year-old John V, Kantakouzenos apparently began with no imperial ambitions of his own, having refused several times to be crowned co-emperor by Andronikos III. Whether he would have remained loyal is unknowable but, despite his devotion to John V and his mother Anna. He attempted to negotiate with the usurpers, but this was rebuffed, further, his relatives in Constantinople were driven into exile or imprisoned, with their property confiscated by the new regents. His mother Theodora died owing to the mistreatment she suffered while under house arrest and his army ignored the new regents orders and proclaimed Kantakouzenos emperor at Didymoteichon in Thrace as John VI. He accepted this, while continuing to style himself as the ruler to John V. The ensuing civil war lasted six years, calling in foreign allies and mercenaries of every description, at first, John VI was obliged to flee to Serbia, where Stefan Dušan protected his men and helped them secure areas of the Balkans. The Greco-Turkish force prevailed and John VI entered Constantinople in triumph in 1346 or 1347 and his opponents—including the patriarch—were deposed from their positions and his status as co-emperor was legitimized. During Johns reign, the fragmented, impoverished, and weakened—continued to be assailed on every side. The Genovese, disregarding the terms of the treaty which permitted their colony at Galata and their customs dues undercut the Byzantines and meant that as much as 87% of the revenue from control of the Bosphorus went to them instead of the empire. John VI attempted to rebuild the shattered Byzantine navy in preparation for the war he expected to follow a reduction of Constantinoples own customs dues. He was able to borrow enough to construct 9 fair-sized ships and about 100 smaller ones before he lowered the rates, when they did declare war, however, they were able to sink or capture his fleet by early 1349
24.
Anna of Savoy
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Not to be confused with Anne of Savoy Anna of Savoy, born Giovanna was a Byzantine Empress consort, as the second spouse of Andronikos III Palaiologos. She served as regent during the minority of her son from 1341 until 1347, Anna was a daughter of Amadeus V, Count of Savoy, and his second wife, Maria of Brabant. She was betrothed to Andronikos III Palaiologos, during which time he was involved in a war with his paternal grandfather Andronikos II Palaiologos. He had claimed the throne since 1321, according to the history of John VI Kantakouzenos, the marriage took place in October,1326. She joined the Eastern Orthodox Church and took the name Anna, in 1328, Andronikos III entered Constantinople and finally deposed his grandfather. On 15 June 1341, Andronikos III died and he was succeeded by their son John V who was still three days short of his ninth birthday. Anna was appointed regent for her son, however Andronikos III had entrusted the administration to his advisor John Kantakouzenos. Anna did not trust the powerful advisor, at about the same time, Stefan Uroš IV Dušan of Serbia launched an invasion of Northern Thrace. Kantakouzenos left Constantinople to try to order to the area. In his absence, Patriarch John XIV of Constantinople and courtier Alexios Apokaukos convinced Anna that the advisor was her enemy. Anna declared Kantakouzenos an enemy of the state and offered the title of eparch of Constantinople to Apokaukos, Kantakouzenos was still in control of part of the Byzantine army. On 26 October 1341, he answered by proclaiming himself emperor at Didymoteicho and this was the beginning of a civil war that would last until 1347. Ivan Alexander of Bulgaria soon allied with the faction under John V, both rulers were actually taking advantage of the civil war for their own political and territorial gains. In time John VI would ally himself with Orhan I of the nascent Ottoman emirate, at the same time Anna was attempting to gain support from Western Europe. In Summer,1343 an emissary proclaimed her loyalty to Pope Clement VI in Avignon, in August,1343, Anna pawned the Byzantine crown jewels to the Republic of Venice for 30,000 ducats as part of an attempt to secure more finances for the war. However Anna at last lost the war, on 3 February 1347, the two sides reached an agreement. John VI was accepted as emperor with John V as his junior co-ruler. The agreement with the marriage of John V to Helena Kantakouzene, John VI entered Constantinople and took effective control of the city
25.
Thrace (theme)
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The Theme of Thrace was a province of the Byzantine Empire located in the south-eastern Balkans, comprising varying parts of the eponymous geographic region during its history. Traditionally, it has held that the theme was constituted in c. 680, as a response to the Bulgar threat and this is based on the mention of a certain patrikios Theodore, Count of the Opsikion and hypostrategos of Thrace, in 680/681. However, it is whether this implies the existence of Thrace as a separate command, with Theodore holding a dual post. In fact, separate strategoi of Thrace are not clearly attested in literary sources until 742, initially, Adrianople was probably the themes capital. Under Empress Irene of Athens, in the late 8th century, from then on, the themes capital was at Arcadiopolis, with subordinate tourmarchai at Bizye and Sozopolis. Another, called tourmarches tes Thrakes is also attested, possibly the strategos deputy at Arcadiopolis, indeed, the boundaries of the theme fluctuated along with the northern frontier of Byzantium during the Byzantine–Bulgarian Wars. Thus, at around the start of the 10th century, the theme comprised essentially the eastern half of modern Eastern Thrace, from the 11th century, Thrace and Macedonia appear to have been usually combined, as attested by numerous strategoi and judges holding jurisdiction over both themes. The name fell out of use as a term in the Palaiologan period
26.
Gallipoli
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The Gallipoli peninsula is located in the southern part of East Thrace, the European part of Turkey, with the Aegean Sea to the west and the Dardanelles strait to the east. Gallipoli is the Italian form of the Greek name Καλλίπολις, meaning Beautiful City, in antiquity, the peninsula was known as the Thracian Chersonese. The peninsula runs in a direction into the Aegean Sea. Near Agora it was protected by a wall running across its full breadth, the isthmus traversed by the wall was only 36 stadia in breadth, but the length of the peninsula from this wall to its southern extremity, Cape Mastusia, was 420 stadia. In ancient times, the Gallipoli Peninsula was known as the Thracian Chersonesus to the Greeks and it was the location of several prominent towns, including Cardia, Pactya, Callipolis, Alopeconnesus, Sestos, Madytos, and Elaeus. The peninsula was renowned for its wheat and it also benefited from its strategic importance on the main route between Europe and Asia, as well as from its control of the shipping route from Crimea. The city of Sestos was the main crossing-point on the Hellespont, according to Herodotus, the Thracian tribe of Dolonci held possession of Chersonesus before the Greek colonization. Then, settlers from Ancient Greece, mainly of Ionian and Aeolian stock, the Athenian statesman Miltiades the Elder founded a major Athenian colony there around 560 BC. He took authority over the peninsula, building up its defences against incursions from the mainland. It eventually passed to his nephew, the more famous Miltiades the Younger, the peninsula was abandoned to the Persians in 493 BC after the outbreak of the Greco-Persian Wars. The Persians were eventually expelled, after which the peninsula was for a time ruled over by Athens, the Athenians established a number of cleruchies on the Thracian Chersonese and sent an additional 1,000 settlers around 448 BC. Sparta gained control after the battle of Aegospotami in 404 BC. In the 4th century BC, the Thracian Chersonese became the focus of a territorial dispute between Athens and Macedon, whose king Philip II sought possession. It was eventually ceded to Philip in 338 BC, after the death of Philips son Alexander the Great in 323 BC, the Thracian Chersonese became the object of contention among Alexanders successors. Lysimachus established his capital Lysimachia here, in 278 BC, Celtic tribes from Galatia in Asia Minor settled in the area. In 196 BC, the Seleucid king Antiochus III seized the peninsula and this alarmed the Greeks and prompted them to seek the aid of the Romans, who conquered the Thracian Chersonese, which they gave to their ally Eumenes II of Pergamon in 188 BC. At the extinction of the Attalid dynasty in 133 BC it passed again to the Romans and it was subsequently made a state-owned territory and during the reign of the emperor Augustus it was imperial property. The Thracian Chersonese was part of the Eastern Roman Empire from its foundation in 330 AD, in 443 AD, Attila the Hun invaded the Gallipoli Peninsula during one of the last stages of his grand campaign that year
27.
Gelibolu
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The Macedonian city of Callipolis was founded in the 5th century B. C. It has a history as a naval base for various rulers. The emperor Justinian I fortified Gallipoli and established important military warehouses for corn and wine there, after the capture of Constantinople by the Latins in 1204, Gallipoli passed into the power of the Republic of Venice. In 1294 the Genoese defeated a Venetian force in the neighbourhood, after the citys defenses were damaged in earthquake, it was conquered by Turks in 1354 and became the first stronghold of the Ottoman Empire in Europe. Sultan Bayezid I built a castle and tower there which can still be seen, in 1416 the Venetians under Pietro Loredan defeated the Turks here. Gallipoli is the site of tombs of the Thracian kings, which refers to the graves of the Islamic writers Ahmed Bican, in 1904 the Greek bishopric of Kallipolis was promoted to a metropolis and is listed under the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople. In 1854 the town was occupied by the allied French and British armies during the Crimean War who strengthened the defensive constructions from 1357, many soldiers died there of cholera and are buried in a local cemetery. The guns of Gallipoli guarded the sea of Marmara until 1878 when more fortifications were built when the Russians threatened to take possession of Constantinople, the Bulgarian Army threatened Gelibolu during the First Balkan War and advanced to Bolayır in 1912. During the First World War the peninsula and the town were witness to a series of memorable battles, the town was occupied by Greeks between 1920–1922, and finally returned to Turkey in 1923 under the Treaty of Lausanne. Between 1922 and 1926 the town was a center and the districts of Gelibolu, Eceabat, Keşan. A Christian bishopric, a suffragan of Heraclea, the capital, the bishopric continued to be a see of the Greek Orthodox Church until after the 1923 population exchange between Greece and Turkey. Lequien mentions three of those bishops who lived in the 14th and 15th centuries, beginning in the early 13th century, there were also Latin Church bishops of Callipolis. No longer a residential bishopric, Callipolis is today listed by the Catholic Church as a titular see, cyrillus fl431 Harmonius fl.538 Melchisedec fl.787 Joseph Paulus Alexius Heinrich Kratz, O. Hosp. S. J. H. Appointed 28 Jan 1484 Edward, appointed 1494 Diego, appointed 21 Aug 1507, died 1509 John Young, ordained bishop 3 Jul 1513, died 28 Mar 1526 Petrus Deodato, O. F. M. S. Sp. Appointed 11 Dec 1846, died 23 Nov 1847 Jean-René Bessieux, appointed 17 Jul 1926, died 27 Dec 1948 Joseph-Pierre-Albert Wittebols, S. C. I. Appointed 10 Mar 1949, appointed Bishop of Wamba 10 Nov 1959 Bernard Schilling, appointed 19 Dec 1959, died 16 Jun 1992 Gelibolu is now an administrative center in the province of Çanakkale. The population of the district is 44,697 where 28,326 live in the center of the district The mayor is Münir Mustafa Özacar, Gelibolu is well known for sardine canning
28.
Fall of Gallipoli
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The Fall of Gallipoli was the siege and capture of the Gallipoli fortress and peninsula, until then under Byzantine rule, by the Ottoman Turks in March 1354. After suffering a half-century of defeats at the hands of the Ottomans, access to the Aegean and Marmara seas meant that the Ottomans could now implement the conquest of the southern Balkans, and could advance further north into Serbia and Hungary. On 2 March 1354, the area was struck by an earthquake that destroyed hundreds of villages, nearly every building in Gallipoli was destroyed, causing the Greek inhabitants to evacuate the city. Within a month, Süleyman Pasha seized the site, quickly fortifying it, john VI offered cash payments to the Ottoman sultan Orhan to vacate the city, but was refused. The sultan reportedly said he had not taken the city by force, panic spread throughout Constantinople as many believed that the Turks would soon be coming for the city itself. Because of this, Kantakouzenoss position became unstable, and he was overthrown in November 1354, Gallipoli was to become the major bridgehead into Europe through which the Ottomans would facilitate further expansion into Europe. In less than ten years, nearly all of Byzantine Thrace had fallen to the Turks, including Adrianople
29.
Vizier
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A vizier is a high-ranking political advisor or minister. In modern usage, the term has been used for ministers in the Arab world, Iran, Turkey, East Africa Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. It is also used in the only absolute Asian monarchy. It is given to the current King Hassanal Bolkiahs second brother, in Brunei, an ordinary vizier is known as Pengiran Temenggong. The word entered into English in 1562 from the Turkish vezir, Wazir itself has two possible etymologies, The most accepted etymology is that it is derived from the Arabic wazara, from the Semitic root W-Z-R. The word is mentioned in the Quran, where Aaron is described as the wazir of Moses, on the other hand, the presence of a Middle Persian word vizīr or vicīr, cognate to the Avestan vīcira, meaning decreer or arbitrator, could possibly indicate an Indo-European origin. In modern Turkey, there is no usage of vezir for any ministry as suggested in the description above, the Muslim office of vizier, which spread from the Persians, Turks, Arabs and Mongols and neighboring peoples, arose under the first Abbasid caliphs. The vizier stood between sovereign and subjects, representing the former in all matters touching the latter, if one such vizier is the prime minister, he may hold the title of Grand Vizier or another title. In Al-Andalus appointed by the Caliph of Cordoba, similarly in many of the emirates and sultanates of the taifas which the caliphate was broken up into. In Muslim Egypt, the most populous Arab country, Under the Fatimid Caliphs. Again since the end of Ottoman rule, remarkably since 1857 (i. e. before the last Wali, Ismail Pasha, was raised Khedive. During the days of the Ottoman Empire, the Grand Vizier was the—often de facto minister, second only to the Sultan and was the leader of the Divan. Vizier was also the title of some Ottoman provincial governors, use of the title indicating a greater degree of autonomy for the province involved. In the Sherifian kingdom of Morocco, a Sadr al-Azam was in office until 22 November 1955, Grand Vizier, Chief Minister or Prime Minister. Wazir al-Amala, Minister for the Interior, Wazir al-Bahr, Minister of the Sea, i. e. for the Navy/ Marine. Wazir al-Harb, Minister for the Army or Minister for War, Wazir al-Qalam, Minister of the Pen. In Oman the Hami/Sultans Chief minister was styled Wazir till 1966, Viziers to the Sultans of Zanzibar, since 1890 filled by British, also known as First ministers, the British Resident s, an extremely direct form of indirect rule. Grand Viziers to the Sultan of Sokoto – this is however disputed, the title Waziri is apparently a derivative of this word, and is a highly regarded chieftaincy title in most of northern Nigeria
30.
Ottoman language
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Ottoman Turkish /ˈɒtəmən/, or the Ottoman language, is the variety of the Turkish language that was used in the Ottoman Empire. It borrows, in all aspects, extensively from Arabic and Persian, during the peak of Ottoman power, Persian and Arabic vocabulary accounted for up to 88% of its vocabulary, while words of Arabic origins heavily outnumbered native Turkish words. The Tanzimât era saw the application of the term Ottoman when referring to the language, nominative case, كول göl, چوربه çorba, گجه gece. Accusative case, طاوشان گترمش ṭavşan getirmiş, genitive case, answers the question كمڭ kimiñ, formed with the suffix ڭ –ıñ, –iñ, –uñ, –üñ. E. g. پاشانڭ paşanıñ from پاشا paşa, accusative case, answers the question كمى kimi and نه يى neyi, formed with the suffix ى –ı, -i, طاوشانى گترمش ṭavşanı getürmiş. The variant suffix –u, –ü does not occur in Ottoman Turkish unlike in Modern Turkish because of the lack of vowel harmony. Thus, كولى göli, but Modern Turkish has gölü, dative case, Locative case, answers the question نره ده nerede, formed with the suffix ده –de, –da, مكتبده mektebde, قفصده ḳafeṣde, باشده başda, شهرده şehirde. As with the accusative case, the variant suffix –te. Ablative case, answers the questions نره دن nereden and ندن neden, instrumental case, answers the question نه ايله ne ile. The conjugation for the aorist tense is as follows, Ottoman Turkish was highly influenced by Arabic, Arabic and Persian words in the language amounted for up to 88% of its vocabulary. From the early ages of the Ottoman Empire, borrowings from Arabic, in Ottoman, one may find whole passages in Arabic and Persian incorporated into the text. It was however not only extensive loaning of words, but along with much of the grammatical systems of Persian. A person would use each of the varieties above for different purposes, with the variant being the most heavily suffused with Arabic and Persian words. For example, a scribe would use the Arabic asel to refer to honey when writing a document, historically, Ottoman Turkish was transformed in three eras, Eski Osmanlı Türkçesi, the version of Ottoman Turkish used until the 16th century. It was almost identical with the Turkish used by Seljuks and Anatolian beyliks and was regarded as part of Eski Anadolu Türkçesi. Orta Osmanlı Türkçesi or Klasik Osmanlıca, the language of poetry and it is the version of Ottoman Turkish that comes to most peoples minds. Yeni Osmanlı Türkçesi, the version shaped from the 1850s to the 20th century under the influence of journalism and it also saw the replacement of the Perso-Arabic script with the extended Latin alphabet. See the list of replaced loanwords in Turkish for more examples on Ottoman Turkish words, two examples of Arabic and two of Persian loanwords are found below
31.
Sultanate of Rum
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The name Rûm reflects the Arabic name of Anatolia, الرُّومُ ar-Rūm, a loan from Greek Ρωμιοί Romans. The Sultanate of Rum seceded from the Great Seljuk Empire under Suleiman ibn Qutulmish in 1077, following the Battle of Manzikert, with capitals first at İznik and then at Konya. It reached the height of its power during the late 12th and early 13th century, in the east, the sultanate absorbed other Turkish states and reached Lake Van. Trade from Iran and Central Asia across Anatolia was developed by a system of caravanserai, especially strong trade ties with the Genoese formed during this period. The increased wealth allowed the sultanate to absorb other Turkish states that had established in eastern Anatolia. The Seljuq sultans bore the brunt of the Crusades, and eventually succumbed to the Mongol invasion in 1243, for the remainder of the 13th century, the Seljuqs acted as vassals of the Ilkhanate. Their power disintegrated during the half of the 13th century. The last of the Seljuq vassals of the Ilkhanate, Mesud II, was murdered in 1308, the dissolution of the Seljuq state left behind a number of Anatolian beyliks, among them that of the Ottoman dynasty, which eventually became the Ottoman Empire. In 1075, he captured the Byzantine cities of Nicaea and Nicomedia, two years later, he declared himself sultan of an independent Seljuq state and established his capital at İznik. Suleyman was killed in Antioch in 1086 by Tutush I, the Seljuk ruler of Syria, when Malik Shah died in 1092, Kilij Arslan was released and immediately established himself in his fathers territories. Kilij Arslan was defeated by soldiers of the First Crusade and driven back into south-central Anatolia, in 1107, he ventured east and captured Mosul but died the same year fighting Malik Shahs son, Mehmed Tapar. Meanwhile, another Rum Seljuq, Malik Shah, captured Konya, in 1116 Kilij Arslans son, Mesud I, took the city with the help of the Danishmends. Upon Mesuds death in 1156, the sultanate controlled nearly all of central Anatolia, Mesuds son, Kilij Arslan II, captured the remaining territories around Sivas and Malatya from the last of the Danishmends. At the Battle of Myriokephalon in 1176, Kilij Arslan II also defeated a Byzantine army led by Manuel I Komnenos, despite a temporary occupation of Konya in 1190 by the Holy Roman Empires forces of the Third Crusade, the sultanate was quick to recover and consolidate its power. During the last years of Kilij Arslan IIs reign, the experienced a civil war with Kaykhusraw I fighting to retain control. Suleiman II was routed by Kingdom of Georgia in Battle of Basian and he was succeeded by his son Kilij Arslan III, whose reign was unpopular. Kaykhusraw I seized Konya in 1205 reestablishing his reign, under his rule and those of his two successors, Kaykaus I and Kayqubad I, Seljuq power in Anatolia reached its apogee. Kaykhusraws most important achievement was the capture of the harbour of Attalia on the Mediterranean coast in 1207 and his son Kaykaus captured Sinop and made the Empire of Trebizond his vassal in 1214
32.
Janissaries
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The Janissaries were elite infantry units that formed the Ottoman Sultans household troops, bodyguards and the first standing army in Europe. The corps was most likely established during the reign of Murad I and they began as an elite corps of slaves made up of conscripted young Christian boys, and became famed for internal cohesion cemented by strict discipline and order. Unlike typical slaves, they were paid regular salaries, forbidden to marry or engage in trade, their complete loyalty to the Sultan was expected. By the seventeenth century, due to a increase in the size of the Ottoman standing army. Civilians bought their way into the corps in order to benefit from the socioeconomic status it conferred upon them. Consequently, the corps gradually lost its character, undergoing a process which has been described as civilianization. The corps was abolished by Sultan Mahmud II in 1826 in the Auspicious Incident in which 6,000 or more were executed, the formation of the Janissaries has been dated to the reign of Murad I, the third ruler of the Ottoman Empire. From the 1380s to 1648, the Janissaries were gathered through the system which was abolished in 1638. This was the taking of non-Muslim boys, notably Anatolian and Balkan Christians, Jews were never subject to devşirme, according to the Encyclopedia Britannica, in early days, all Christians were enrolled indiscriminately. Later, those from Albania, Bosnia, and Bulgaria were preferred, the Janissaries were kapıkulları, door servants or slaves of the Porte, neither freemen nor ordinary slaves. They were subjected to strict discipline, but were paid salaries and pensions upon retirement, as such, they became one of the ruling classes of the Ottoman Empire, rivalling the Turkish aristocracy. The brightest of the Janissaries were sent to the palace institution, through a system of meritocracy, the Janissaries held enormous power, stopping all efforts at reform of the military. These boys were taken from their parents and given to Turkish families in the provinces to learn Turkish language and customs. The recruits were indoctrinated into Islam, forced into circumcision and supervised 24 hours a day by eunuchs and they were subjected to severe discipline, being prohibited from growing a beard, taking up a skill other than soldiering, and marrying. As a result, the Janissaries were extremely well-disciplined troops, and became members of the askeri class, most were non-Muslims, because it was not permissible to enslave a Muslim. The Janissary system was introduced in the 14th century, the Janissary Corps was a trained and loyal group of slaves to the sultan. In the late 16th century, a sultan gave in to the pressures of the Corps and permitted Janissary children to members of the Corps. They also became rent-seeking and sought protection of their special rights, according to paintings of the era, they were also permitted to grow beards
33.
Charles VII of France
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Charles VII, called the Victorious or the Well-Served, was a monarch of the House of Valois who ruled as King of France from 1422 to his death. In the midst of the Hundred Years War, Charles VII inherited the throne of France under desperate circumstances, in addition, his father Charles VI had disinherited him in 1420 and recognized Henry V of England and his heirs as the legitimate successors to the French crown instead. At the same time, a war raged in France between the Armagnacs and the Burgundian party. However, his political and military position improved dramatically with the emergence of Joan of Arc as a leader in France. Joan of Arc and other charismatic figures led French troops to lift the siege of Orléans, as well as other cities on the Loire river. With the local English troops dispersed, the people of Reims switched allegiance and opened their gates and this long-awaited event boosted French morale as hostilities with England resumed. Following the battle of Castillon in 1453, the French had expelled the English from all their continental possessions except for the Pale of Calais, the last years of Charles VII were marked by conflicts with his turbulent son, the future Louis XI of France. Born at the Hôtel Saint-Pol, the residence in Paris. He was the child and fifth son of Charles VI of France. His four elder brothers, Charles, Charles, Louis and John had each held the title of Dauphin of France in turn, all died childless, leaving Charles with a rich inheritance of titles. By 1419, Charles had established his own court in Bourges and they also decided that a further meeting should take place the following 10 September. On that date, they met on the bridge at Montereau, the Duke assumed that the meeting would be entirely peaceful and diplomatic, thus he brought only a small escort with him. The Dauphins men reacted to the Dukes arrival by attacking and killing him, Charles level of involvement has remained uncertain to this day. Although he claimed to have been unaware of his mens intentions, the assassination marked the end of any attempt of a reconciliation between the two factions Armagnacs and Burgundians, thus playing into the hands of Henry V of England. Charles was later required by a treaty with Philip the Good, the son of John the Fearless, to pay penance for the murder, at the death of his father, Charles VI, the succession was cast into doubt. For those who did not recognize the treaty and believed the Dauphin Charles to be of legitimate birth, for those who did not recognize his legitimacy, the rightful heir was recognized as Charles, Duke of Orléans, cousin of the Dauphin, who was in English captivity. Only the supporters of Henry VI and the Dauphin Charles were able to enlist sufficient military force to press effectively for their candidates, the English, already in control of northern France, were able to enforce the claim of their king in the regions of France that they occupied. Northern France, including Paris, was ruled by an English regent, Henry Vs brother, John of Lancaster, 1st Duke of Bedford
