1.
Pertevniyal Valide Sultan Mosque
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The Pertevniyal Valide Sultan Mosque, also known as the Aksaray Valide Mosque, is an Ottoman imperial mosque in Istanbul, Turkey. It is located at the intersection of Ordu Street and Atatürk Boulevard in the Aksaray neighborhood and it is located next to Pertevniyal High School which was also built by the order of Sultana Pertevniyal in 1872. It was designed by the Italian architect Montani, the construction work began in November 1869, and the mosque was finished in 1871. The building is an example of Turkish Rococo with admixture of classical Turkish, Gothic, Renaissance and it is rather unique in the details of the rock work. Ottoman architecture List of mosques Faroqhi, Suraiyah, subjects of the Sultan, Culture and Daily Life in the Ottoman Empire
2.
Aksaray
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Aksaray is a city in the Central Anatolia region of Turkey and the capital district of Aksaray Province. According to 2009 census figures, the population of the province is 376907 of which 171,423 live in the city of Aksaray. The district covers an area of 4,589 km2, Aksaray region was an important stopover along the Silk Road that crossed through Anatolia for centuries and the city of Aksaray has a long history. The town of Garsaura was named Archelaïs by Archelaus of Cappadocia, in Roman times, the town was known as Colonia and was a bishopric and an important military centre, holding an imperial aplekton. No longer a residential bishopric, Colonia in Cappadocia is today listed by the Catholic Church as a titular see, Colonia is also a titular metropolis in Turkey of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople. The town was prosperous during Ottoman times due to its proximity to Tuz Gölü. The region came under the control of the Seljuk Turks after the Battle of Manzikert in 1071, the Anatolian Seljuk Sultanate they founded left important landmarks in and around Aksaray. Today Aksaray is a quiet mid-size city, ihlara Valley and the other tourist attractions of Cappadocia are close, but as yet, Aksaray has not been very successful in attracting visitors to the city itself. A new attraction in Aksaray city is Hünkarland, a theme park with artificial waterfalls. This is an agricultural region producing grains, meat and dairy and many kinds of fruit. Therefore, the cuisine of the town is of high standard, Aksaray has a cold semi-arid climate under the Köppen and either a hot summer continental climate or hot summer oceanic under the Trewartha classification. Hasan Dağı – a 3, 000m volcano between Aksaray and Niğde, visible from the city, aşıklı Höyük – a burial mound 25 km east of the city of Aksaray. Acemhöyük – an early Bronze Age settlement,18 km north-west of the city of Aksaray, the ancient Roman and Byzantine city of Nora, in the village of Helvadere near the city of Aksaray. Ihlara – a canyon,40 km from the city of Aksaray, contains ancient churches, carved into the valley walls, ervah cemetery in the city contains the tombs of 14th century Islamic leader Somuncu Baba and the scholar Cemaleddini Aksaray. The race tours 244 km in six days through several places across Cappadocia reaching out to Lake Tuz, karamanoğlu Camii – a large mosque in the city centre. Eğri Minare – a Seljuk Turkish minaret 1221–1236, built under the rule of Aläettin Keykubat I The high church – on a steep rock 3 km from the city, there are three monumental caravanserais in the neighbourhood of Aksaray. The best known is Sultan Han, located in the village Sultanhan about 40 km west of Aksaray. After it was destroyed by a fire, it was restored and extended in 1278 by the governor Seraceddin Ahmed Kerimeddin bin El Hasan during the reign of the sultan Kaykhusraw III
3.
Istanbul
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Istanbul, historically known as Constantinople and Byzantium, is the most populous city in Turkey and the countrys economic, cultural, and historic center. Istanbul is a city in Eurasia, straddling the Bosphorus strait between the Sea of Marmara and the Black Sea. Its commercial and historical center lies on the European side and about a third of its population lives on the Asian side, the city is the administrative center of the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality, both hosting a population of around 14.7 million residents. Istanbul is one of the worlds most populous cities and ranks as the worlds 7th-largest city proper, founded under the name of Byzantion on the Sarayburnu promontory around 660 BCE, the city developed to become one of the most significant in history. After its reestablishment as Constantinople in 330 CE, it served as a capital for almost 16 centuries, during the Roman and Byzantine, the Latin. Overlooked for the new capital Ankara during the period, the city has since regained much of its prominence. The population of the city has increased tenfold since the 1950s, as migrants from across Anatolia have moved in, arts, music, film, and cultural festivals were established at the end of the 20th century and continue to be hosted by the city today. Infrastructure improvements have produced a complex transportation network, considered a global city, Istanbul has one of the fastest-growing metropolitan economies in the world. It hosts the headquarters of many Turkish companies and media outlets and accounts for more than a quarter of the gross domestic product. Hoping to capitalize on its revitalization and rapid expansion, Istanbul has bid for the Summer Olympics five times in twenty years, the first known name of the city is Byzantium, the name given to it at its foundation by Megarean colonists around 660 BCE. The name is thought to be derived from a personal name, ancient Greek tradition refers to a legendary king of that name as the leader of the Greek colonists. Modern scholars have hypothesized that the name of Byzas was of local Thracian or Illyrian origin. He also attempted to promote the name Nova Roma and its Greek version Νέα Ῥώμη Nea Romē, the use of Constantinople to refer to the city during the Ottoman period is now considered politically incorrect, even if not historically inaccurate, by Turks. By the 19th century, the city had acquired other names used by foreigners or Turks. Europeans used Constantinople to refer to the whole of the city, pera was used to describe the area between the Golden Horn and the Bosphorus, but Turks also used the name Beyoğlu. The name İstanbul is commonly held to derive from the Medieval Greek phrase εἰς τὴν Πόλιν and this reflected its status as the only major city in the vicinity. The importance of Constantinople in the Ottoman world was reflected by its Ottoman name Der Saadet meaning the gate to Prosperity in Ottoman. An alternative view is that the name evolved directly from the name Constantinople, with the first, a Turkish folk etymology traces the name to Islam bol plenty of Islam because the city was called Islambol or Islambul as the capital of the Islamic Ottoman Empire
4.
Valide sultan
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Valide sultan was the title held by the legal mother of a ruling Sultan of the Ottoman Empire. The title was first used in the 16th century for Hafsa Sultan, consort of Selim I and mother of Suleiman the Magnificent, normally, this title was held by the living mother of a reigning sultan. The mothers who died before their sons accession to the throne were never bestowed with the title of valide sultan, in special cases, there were grandmothers and stepmothers of a reigning sultan who assumed the title valide sultan. The word valide literally means mother in Ottoman Turkish, the Turkish pronunciation of the word valide is. Sultan is an Arabic word originally meaning authority or dominion, by the beginning of the 16th century, this title, carried by both men and women of the Ottoman dynasty, was replacing other titles by which prominent members of the imperial family had been known. Consequently, the title valide hatun also turned into valide sultan and this usage underlines the Ottoman conception of sovereign power as family prerogative. Western tradition knows the Ottoman ruler as sultan, but the Ottomans themselves used padişah or hünkar to refer to their ruler, the emperor’s formal title consisted of sultan together with khan. In formal address, the children were also entitled sultan, with imperial princes carrying the title before their given name. Example, Şehzade Sultan Mehmed and Mihrimah Sultan, son and daughter of Suleiman the Magnificent, henceforth, the mother of the reigning sultan was the only person of non imperial blood to carry the title sultan. Title valide carried before or after given name, according to a genealogical website, the formal way of addressing a valide is Devletlû İsmetlu Vâlide Sultân Aliyyetüş-Şân Hazretleri. Valide sultan was perhaps the most important position in the Ottoman Empire after the sultan himself, as the mother to the sultan, by Islamic tradition, the valide sultan would have a significant influence on the affairs of the empire. She had great power in the court and her own rooms, Valide sultan also traditionally had access to considerable economic resources and often funded major architectural projects. In particular during the 17th century, in a known as the Sultanate of Women. The most powerful and well-known of all sultans in the history of the Ottoman Empire were Nurbanu Sultan, Safiye Sultan. Most harem women who were slaves were never married to the sultans. Nevertheless, their children were considered legitimate under Islamic law if recognized by the father. The list does not include the complete list of mothers of the Ottoman sultans, most who held the title of valide sultan were the biological mothers of the reigning sultans. In special cases, there were grandmothers and stepmothers of the sultans who assumed the title of valide sultan, like Kösem Sultan
5.
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
6.
Circassia
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Circassia is a region in the North Caucasus and along the northeast shore of the Black Sea. It is the homeland of the Circassian people. The name Circassia is a Latinisation of Cherkess, the Turkic name for the Adyghe people, the name Cherkess is traditionally applied to the Adyghe by neighbouring Turkic peoples. Another historical name for the country was Zyx or the Zygii, at the end of the 15th century, a detailed description of Circassia and of its inhabitants was made by Genoese traveller and ethnographer Giorgio Interiano. Circassia was located in Eastern Europe, near the northeastern Black Sea coast, before the Russian conquest of the Caucasus, it covered the entire fertile plateau and the steppe of the northwestern region of the Caucasus, with an estimated population of between 3 and 4 million. Circassia’s historical great range extended from the Taman Peninsula in the west, sochi is considered by many Circassians as their traditional capital city. According to Circassians, the 2014 Winter Olympic village is built in an area of graves of Circassians after their defeat by the Russians in 1864. 1237 – Historian Rashid-ad-Din in the Persian Chronicles, wrote that the Circassian king Tukar was killed in battle against the Mongols. 1333 – In his letter, Pope John XXII, the Rome Pontiff thanks the Governor of Circassians for his assistance in implementing the Christian faith among the Adygs. Verzachts power and status was so high that his example was followed by the rest of the Circassian princes,1471 – A contract was signed between the ruler of Circassia and the ruler of Caffa, naming another ruler Zichia - Petrezok, the paramount lord of Zichia. Under the contract, Zichia would supply large quantities of grain in the Cаffа, the region was famed for its beautiful women, many of whom were married to the Ottoman sultan and Persian Shahs and had influential positions in the Imperial Harem. Most of the population was expelled from their country to the neighboring Ottoman Empire in the late 19th century after the Russian–Circassian War, today, about 700,000 Circassians remain in historical Circassia in todays Russia. The 2010 Russian Census recorded 718,727 Circassians, of which 516,826 are Kabardians,124,835 are Adyghe proper,73,184 are Cherkess and 3,882 Shapsugs, the largest Circassian population resides in Turkey. Under Russian and Soviet rule, ethnic and tribal divisions between Circassians were promoted, resulting in several different statistical names being used for parts of the Circassian people. Consequently, there is an effort among Circassians to unite under the name Circassian in Russian Censuses to reflect, the majority of the diaspora already tends to call itself Circassian. Let Our Fame Be Great, Journeys Among the Defiant People of the Caucasus, the Circassians, A Handbook, London, Routledge, New York, Routledge & Palgrave,2001. Circassian Culture and Folklore, Hospitality, Traditions, Cuisine, Festivals, the Circassian Genocide, Rutgers University Press,2013. Everyday life of the Caucasian highlanders, ISBN 5-235-02585-7 Journal of a residence in Circassia during the years 1837,1838, and 1839 - Bell, James Stanislaus
7.
Mahmud II
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Mahmud II was the 30th Sultan of the Ottoman Empire from 1808 until his death in 1839. He was born in the Topkapı Palace, Constantinople, the son of Sultan Abdul Hamid I. His mother was Nakşidil Valide Sultan, in 1808, Mahmud IIs predecessor, and half-brother, Mustafa IV ordered his execution along with his cousin, the deposed Sultan Selim III, in order to defuse the rebellion. Selim III was killed, but Mahmud was safely hidden by his mother and was placed on the throne after the rebels deposed Mustafa IV. The leader of rebellion, Alemdar Mustafa Pasha, later became Mahmud IIs vizier. Western Historians give Mahmud a bad reputation for simply being the Sultan during a time of deterioration of the Ottoman Empire, there are many stories surrounding the circumstances of his attempted murder. When the assassins approached the Harem chambers where Mahmud was staying, she was able to keep away for a while by throwing ashes into their faces. This allowed Mahmud to escape through a window and climb onto the roof of the Harem and he apparently ran to the roof of the Third Court where other pages saw him and helped him come down with pieces of clothes that were quickly tied together as a ladder. By this time one of the leaders of the rebellion, Alemdar Mustafa Pasha arrived with his armed men, a plain stone staircase at the Altınyol of the Harem is called Staircase of Cevri Kalfa, since the events apparently happened around there and are associated with her. The vizier took the initiative in resuming reforms that had been terminated by the coup of 1807 that had brought Mustafa IV to power. However he was killed during a rebellion in 1808 and Mahmud II temporarily abandoned the reforms, Mahmud IIs later reformation efforts were more successful. During the early years of Mahmud IIs reign, his governor of Egypt Mehmet Ali Paşa successfully reconquered the cities of Medina. Abdullah bin Saud and his two followers were beheaded for their crimes against holy cities and mosques. His reign also marked the first breakaway from the Ottoman Empire and this event, together with the occupation of the Ottoman province of Algeria by France in 1830, marked the beginning of the gradual break-up of the Ottoman Empire. Non-Turkish ethnic groups living in the territories, especially in Europe. One of Mahmud IIs most notable acts during his reign was the abolition of the Janissary corps in June 1826 and he accomplished this by using his recently reformed wing of the military intended to replace the Janissaries. When the Janissaries mounted a demonstration against Mahmud IIs proposed reforms and this permitted the establishment of a European-style conscript army, recruited largely from Turkish speakers of Rumelia and Asia Minor. Mahmud was also responsible for the subjugation of the Iraqi Mamluks by Ali Ridha Pasha in 1831 and he ordered the execution of the renowned Ali Pasha of Tepelena
8.
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
9.
Hoshiar Kadinefendi
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Hoshiar Kadinefendi was a consort to Ibrahim Pasha and was Walida Pasha to their son Ismail Pasha. She was the sister of Pertevniyal Sultan, the Valide Sultan, or Queen mother, to Ottoman Sultan Abdülaziz I. Hoshiar Kadinefendi was a Circassian concubine of Ibrahim Pasha, on 31 December 1830 she gave birth to Ismail Pasha. After the death of Said, Ismail was proclaimed Khedive on 19 January 1863, though the Ottoman Empire and the other Great Powers recognized him only as Wāli, and Hoshiar became the Walida Pasha. Hoshiar was a figure whose doings were continually reported by the press. During the Urabi revolt her patriotic feelings made her accept Urabi as the defender of the country against a British invasion and she was a formidable person of great intelligence and character who wielded considerable influence over her son. When the Sultan Abdülaziz of Turkey visited Egypt, he made a point off particularly honouring Hoshiar by bestowing on her the Grand Cordon of the Osmaniyeh, but the Khedive adored his mother and remained to the end a most devoted son. The Queen mother lived in her palace of Qasar al-Ali, now part of the district of Garden city. There she held a quite incredible state, never condescending to leave her home for anyone elses, an indeed, as Ibrahim Pashas widow and Khedives mother her position was unique. She was influential in lobbying the Sultan to change the Egyptian system of succession so that it is limited to her sons line and her court al-Walida Pasha, was said to be larger and more prominent than that of his any of his wives. Abdallah al-Nadeem, whom the Khedive tried to briefly co-opt, described the head eunuch of al-Walida Pasha as having more influence than the prime minister. Finally, most reports suggested that she was the family member who was with him when he received the Ottoman decree that deposed him. She died at the Greater Qasar al-Ali Palace, Cairo, on 21 June 1886, and was buried there at the Khedival Mausoleum, Al-Rifai Mosque,18 December 1863 –26 June 1879 Her Majesty the Walida Pasha Order of the Osmans of Turkey in brilliants Buyers, Christopher
10.
Isma'il Pasha
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Ismail Pasha, known as Ismail the Magnificent, was the Khedive of Egypt and Sudan from 1863 to 1879, when he was removed at the behest of the United Kingdom. His philosophy can be glimpsed at in a statement that he made in 1879, My country is no longer in Africa and it is therefore natural for us to abandon our former ways and to adopt a new system adapted to our social conditions. In 1867 he also secured Ottoman and international recognition for his title of Khedive in preference to Wāli which was used by his predecessors in the Ottoman Eyalet of Egypt. The second of the three sons of Ibrahim Pasha, and the grandson of Muhammad Ali, Ismail, of Albanian descent, was born in Cairo at Al Musafir Khana Palace and his mother was Circassian Hoshiar, third wife of his father. She was reportedly a sister of Valide Sultan Pertevniyal, Pertevniyal was a wife of Mahmud II of the Ottoman Empire and mother of Abdülaziz I. In 1861 he was dispatched at the head of an army of 18,000 to quell an insurrection in Sudan, after the death of Said, Ismail was proclaimed Khedive on 19 January 1863, though the Ottoman Empire and the other Great Powers recognized him only as Wāli. Like all Egyptian and Sudanese rulers since his grandfather Muhammad Ali Pasha, he claimed the title of Khedive. Finally, in 1867, Ismail succeeded in persuading the Ottoman Sultan Abdülaziz to grant a firman finally recognizing him as Khedive in exchange for an increase in the tribute and he greatly expanded Cairo, building an entire new quarter of the city on its western edge modeled on Paris. He launched a vast railroad building project that saw Egypt and Sudan rise from having virtually none to the most railways per habitable kilometer of any nation in the world, education reform more than tenfold increased the education budget. Traditional primary and secondary schools were expanded and specialized technical and vocational schools were created, students were once again sent to Europe to study on educational missions, encouraging the formation of a Western-trained elite. A national library was founded in 1871, one of his most significant achievements was to establish an assembly of delegates in November 1866. Though this was supposed to be an advisory body, its members eventually came to have an important influence on governmental affairs. Village headmen dominated the assembly and came to exert increasing political and economic influence over the countryside and this was shown in 1876, when the assembly persuaded Ismail to reinstate the law that allowed landownership and tax privileges to persons paying six years land tax in advance. Ismail tried to reduce slave trading and extended Egypts rule in Africa, Ismail dreamt of expanding his realm across the entire Nile including its diverse sources, and over the whole African coast of the Red Sea. This, together with rumours about rich raw material and fertile soil, in 1865 the Ottoman Sublime Porte ceded the Ottoman Province of Habesh to Ismail. This province, neighbor of Ethiopia, first consisted of a coastal strip only, here Ismail occupied regions originally claimed by the Ottomans when they had established the province of Habesh in the 16th century. New economically promising projects, like huge cotton plantations in the Barka delta, were started, in 1872 Bogos was annexed by the governor of the new Province of Eastern Sudan and the Red Sea Coast, Werner Munzinger Pasha. In October 1875 Ismails army occupied the adjacent highlands of Hamasien, in March 1876 Ismails army suffered a dramatic defeat after an attack by Yohanness army at Gura
11.
Bosphorus
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The Bosphorus or Bosporus is a narrow, natural strait and an internationally significant waterway located in northwestern Turkey. It forms part of the boundary between Europe and Asia, and separates Asian Turkey from European Turkey. The worlds narrowest strait used for navigation, the Bosphorus connects the Black Sea with the Sea of Marmara, and, by extension via the Dardanelles. Most of the shores of the strait are heavily settled, straddled by the city of Istanbuls metropolitan population of 17 million inhabitants extending inland from both coasts, together with the Dardanelles, the Bosphorus forms the Turkish Straits. This folk etymology was canonized by Aeschylus in Prometheus Bound, where Prometheus prophesies to Io that the strait would be named after her, the site where Io supposedly went ashore was near Chrysopolis, and was named Bous the Cow. The same site was known as Damalis, as it was where the Athenian general Chares had erected a monument to his wife Damalis. Historically, the Bosphorus was also known as the Strait of Constantinople, or the Thracian Bosphorus and these are expressed in Herodotus Histories,4.83, as Bosporus Thracius, Bosporus Thraciae, and Βόσπορος Θρᾴκιος, respectively. Other names by which the strait is referenced by Herodotus include Chalcedonian Bosporus, the term eventually came to be used as common noun βόσπορος, meaning a strait, and was also formerly applied to the Hellespont in Classical Greek by Aeschylus and Sophocles. Presently, the waterway is officially referred to as simply Bosphorus, the Marmara further connects to the Aegean and Mediterranean Seas via the Dardanelles. A common mistake made by those who are unfamiliar with the locale is to assume the Bosphorus is a river, when it is, in fact. The exact scientific cause and date of the formation of the Bosphorus remain the subject of debate among geologists, many geologists, however, claim that the strait is much older, even if relatively young on a geologic timescale. The Symplegades were defeated when the lyrical hero Jason obtained successful passage, whereupon the rocks became fixed, between these limits, the strait is 31 km long, with a width of 3,329 m at the northern entrance and 2,826 m at the southern entrance. Its maximum width is 3,420 m between Umuryeri and Büyükdere Limanı, and minimum width 700 m between Kandilli Point and Aşiyan, the depth of the Bosphorus varies from 13 to 110 m in midstream with an average of 65 m. The deepest location is between Kandilli and Bebek with 110 m, the most shallow locations are off Kadıköy İnciburnu on the northward route with 18 m and off Aşiyan Point on the southward route with 13 m. The study of the water and wind erosion of the straits relates to that of its formation, sections of the shore have been reinforced with concrete or rubble and sections of the strait prone to deposition are periodically dredged. These channels are the main pathway for sediments to the deep sea where they form sedimentary deposits. These deposits ultimately hold not only untapped reserves of gas and oil and our initial findings show that the flow in these channels is quite different to the flow in river channels on land. Specifically, as flow moves around a bend it spirals in the direction in the deep sea compared to the spiral found in river channels on land
12.
Second French Empire
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The Second French Empire was the Imperial Bonapartist regime of Napoleon III from 1852 to 1870, between the Second Republic and the Third Republic, in France. The structure of the French government during the Second Empire was little changed from the First, but Emperor Napoleon III stressed his own imperial role as the foundation of the government. He had so often, while in prison or in exile and his answer was to organize a system of government based on the principles of the Napoleonic Idea. This meant that the emperor, the elect of the people as the representative of the democracy, ruled supreme. He himself drew power and legitimacy from his role as representative of the great Napoleon I of France, the anti-parliamentary French Constitution of 1852 instituted by Napoleon III on 14 January 1852, was largely a repetition of that of 1848. All executive power was entrusted to the emperor, who, as head of state, was responsible to the people. The people of the Empire, lacking democratic rights, were to rely on the benevolence of the rather than on the benevolence of politicians. He was to nominate the members of the council of state, whose duty it was to prepare the laws, and of the senate, a body permanently established as a constituent part of the empire. One innovation was made, namely, that the Legislative Body was elected by universal suffrage and this new political change was rapidly followed by the same consequence as had attended that of Brumaire. The press was subjected to a system of cautionnements and avertissements, in order to counteract the opposition of individuals, a surveillance of suspects was instituted. In the same way public instruction was strictly supervised, the teaching of philosophy was suppressed in the lycées, for seven years France had no democratic life. The Empire governed by a series of plebiscites, up to 1857 the Opposition did not exist, from then till 1860 it was reduced to five members, Darimon, Émile Ollivier, Hénon, Jules Favre and Ernest Picard. On 2 December 1851 Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte, who had been elected President of the Republic and he thus became sole ruler of France, and re-established universal suffrage, previously abolished by the Assembly. His decisions and the extension of his mandate for 10 years were popularly endorsed by a referendum later that month that attracted an implausible 92 percent support. A new constitution was enacted in January 1852 which made Louis-Napoléon president for 10 years, however, he was not content with merely being an authoritarian president. Almost as soon as he signed the new document into law, in response to officially-inspired requests for the return of the empire, the Senate scheduled a second referendum in November, which passed with 97 percent support. As with the December 1851 referendum, most of the yes votes were manufactured out of thin air, the empire was formally re-established on 2 December 1852, and the Prince-President became Napoléon III, Emperor of the French. The constitution concentrated so much power in his hands that the only changes were to replace the word president with the word emperor
13.
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland
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The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland was established as a sovereign state on 1 January 1801 by the Acts of Union 1800, which merged the kingdoms of Great Britain and Ireland. The growing desire for an Irish Republic led to the Irish War of Independence, Northern Ireland remained part of the United Kingdom, and the state was consequently renamed the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Britain financed the European coalition that defeated France in 1815 in the Napoleonic Wars, the British Empire thereby became the foremost world power for the next century. The Crimean War with Russia and the Boer wars were relatively small operations in a largely peaceful century, rapid industrialisation that began in the decades prior to the states formation continued up until the mid-19th century. A devastating famine, exacerbated by government inaction in the century, led to demographic collapse in much of Ireland. It was an era of economic modernization and growth of industry, trade and finance. Outward migration was heavy to the colonies and to the United States. Britain also built up a large British Empire in Africa and Asia, India, by far the most important possession, saw a short-lived revolt in 1857. In foreign policy Britain favoured free trade, which enabled its financiers and merchants to operate successfully in many otherwise independent countries, as in South America. Britain formed no permanent military alliances until the early 20th century, when it began to cooperate with Japan, France and Russia, and moved closer to the United States. A brief period of limited independence for Ireland came to an end following the Irish Rebellion of 1798, the British governments fear of an independent Ireland siding against them with the French resulted in the decision to unite the two countries. This was brought about by legislation in the parliaments of both kingdoms and came into effect on 1 January 1801, however, King George III was bitterly opposed to any such Emancipation and succeeded in defeating his governments attempts to introduce it. When the Treaty of Amiens ended the war, Britain agreed to return most of the territories it had seized, in May 1803, war was declared again. In 1806, Napoleon issued the series of Berlin Decrees, which brought into effect the Continental System and this policy aimed to eliminate the threat from the British by closing French-controlled territory to foreign trade. Frances population and agricultural capacity far outstripped that of the British Isles, Napoleon expected that cutting Britain off from the European mainland would end its economic hegemony. The Spanish uprising in 1808 at last permitted Britain to gain a foothold on the Continent, after Napoleons surrender and exile to the island of Elba, peace appeared to have returned. The Allies united and the armies of Wellington and Blucher defeated Napoleon once, simultaneous with the Napoleonic Wars, trade disputes, arming hostile Indians and British impressment of American sailors led to the War of 1812 with the United States. The war was little noticed in Britain, which could devote few resources to the conflict until the fall of Napoleon in 1814, American frigates inflicted a series of defeats on the Royal Navy, which was short on manpower due to the conflict in Europe
14.
Kingdom of Prussia
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It was the driving force behind the unification of Germany in 1871 and was the leading state of the German Empire until its dissolution in 1918. Although it took its name from the region called Prussia, it was based in the Margraviate of Brandenburg, the kings of Prussia were from the House of Hohenzollern. Prussia was a power from the time it became a kingdom, through its predecessor, Brandenburg-Prussia. Prussia continued its rise to power under the guidance of Frederick II, more known as Frederick the Great. After the might of Prussia was revealed it was considered as a power among the German states. Throughout the next hundred years Prussia went on to win many battles and it was because of its power that Prussia continuously tried to unify all the German states under its rule. Attempts at creation of a federation remained unsuccessful and the German Confederation collapsed in 1866 when war ensued between its two most powerful states, Prussia and Austria. The North German Confederation which lasted from 1867–1871, created a union between the Prussian-aligned states while Austria and most of Southern Germany remained independent. The North German Confederation was seen as more of an alliance of military strength in the aftermath of the Austro-Prussian War, the German Empire lasted from 1871–1918 with the successful unification of all the German states under Prussian hegemony. This was due to the defeat of Napoleon III in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–71, in 1871, Germany unified into a single country, minus Austria and Switzerland, with Prussia the dominant power. Prussia is considered the predecessor of the unified German Reich. The Kingdom left a significant cultural legacy, today notably promoted by the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation, in 1415 a Hohenzollern Burgrave came from the south to the March of Brandenburg and took control of the area as elector. In 1417 the Hohenzollern was made an elector of the Holy Roman Empire, after the Polish wars, the newly established Baltic towns of the German states including Prussia, suffered many economic setbacks. Many of the Prussian towns could not even afford to attend political meetings outside of Prussia, the towns were poverty stricken, with even the largest town, Danzig, having to borrow money from elsewhere to pay for trade. Poverty in these towns was partly caused by Prussias neighbors, who had established and developed such a monopoly on trading that these new towns simply could not compete and these issues led to feuds, wars, trade competition and invasions. However, the fall of these gave rise to the nobility, separated the east and the west. It was clear in 1440 how different Brandenburg was from the other German territories, not only did it face partition from within but also the threat of its neighbors. It prevented the issue of partition by enacting the Dispositio Achillea which instilled the principle of primogeniture to both the Brandenburg and Franconian territories, the second issue was solved through expansion
15.
Harem
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The structure of the harem and the extent of monogamy or polygamy has varied depending on the familys personalities, socio-economic status, and local customs. This private space has been understood as serving the purposes of maintaining the modesty, privilege. In former times, some harems were guarded by eunuchs who were allowed inside, there are several Renaissance paintings dating to the 16th century that defy Orientalist tropes and portray the women of the Ottoman harem as individuals of status and political significance. In many periods of Islamic history women in the harem exercised various degrees of political power, the word has been recorded in the English language since early 17th century. It comes from the Arabic ḥarīm, which can mean a sacred inviolable place, in English the term harem can mean also the wives of a polygamous man. The triliteral Ḥ-R-M appears in other terms related the notion of such as haram, mahram, ihram and al-Ḥaram al-Šarīf. In Turkish of the Ottoman era, the harem, i. e. the part of the reserved for women was called haremlık. Some scholars have used the term to refer to royal households throughout history. In Muscovite Russia the area of houses where women were secluded was known as terem. The idea of harem or seclusion of women did not originate with Muhammad or Islam and these practices were well established amongst the upper classes of Iraq, the Byzantine Empire, Ancient Greece and Persia for thousands of years before the advent of Islam. The practice of secluding women was common to many ancient near eastern communities, in pre-Islamic Assyria, Persia, and Egypt, most royal courts had a harem, where the ruler’s wives and concubines lived with female attendants, and eunuchs. The harem system first became fully institutionalized in the Islamic world under the Abbasid caliphate, Some scholars believe that Islamic culture adopted the custom of secluding women from the Byzantine Empire and Persia, and then read those customs back into the Quran. According to Eleanor Doumato, the practice of secluding women in Islam is based on both tradition and social custom. One verse in particular discusses hijab, in modern usage hijab colloquially refers to the religious attire worn by Muslim women, but its original meaning was a veil or curtain that physically separates female from male space. Leila Ahmed describes the ideal of seclusion as a a mans right to keep his women concealed-invisible to other men, Ahmed identifies the practice of seclusion as a social ideal and one of the four factors that shaped the lives of women in the Mediterranean Middle East. For example, contemporary sources from the Byzantine Empire describe the social mores that governed womens lives, Women were not supposed to be seen in public. They were guarded by eunuchs and could leave the home veiled. Some of these customs were borrowed from the Persians, but Greek society also influenced the development of patriarchal tradition, the ideal of seclusion was not fully realized as social reality
16.
Ruse, Bulgaria
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Ruse is the fifth largest city in Bulgaria. It is the most significant Bulgarian river port, serving an important part of the trade of the country. Ruse is known for its 19th- and 20th-century Neo-Baroque and Neo-Rococo architecture and it is often called the Little Vienna. The Ruse-Giurgiu Friendship Bridge, until 14 June 2013 the only one in the shared Bulgarian-Romanian section of the Danube, Ruse is the birthplace of the Nobel laureate in Literature - Elias Canetti. A popular legend claims that the name Ruse comes from the name of a founder of the city, whose name was Rusa. In the 13th and 14th centuries, during the time of the Second Bulgarian Empire, the city emerged from a Neolithic settlement of the 3rd to 2nd millennium BCE, when pottery, fishing, agriculture, and hunting developed. Excavations have revealed several layers, suggesting that the place was attacked by neighbouring tribes, ancient sanctuaries were found nearby, where idols of a pregnant woman, a fertility goddess, were prevalent. The later Thracian settlement developed into a Roman military and naval centre during the reign of Vespasian and its name, Sexaginta Prista, suggests a meaning of a city of 60 ships, based on the supposed 60 nearby berths. The fortress was located on the road between Singidunum and the Danube Delta and was destroyed in the 6th century by Avar and Slavic raids. An inscription from the reign of Diocletian proves that the city was rebuilt as a praesidium after it was destroyed by the Goths in 250 CE, the settlement was also mentioned as Golyamo Yorgovo in the Middle Ages, whose present successor is Giurgiu in Romania. During Ottoman rule, the destroyed the town, reacting to a 1595 unsuccessful liberation attempt by a joint Vlach-Bulgarian army. After its rebuilding in the years, Ruse was dubbed Rusçuk and had again expanded into a large fortress by the 18th century. It later grew into one of the most important Ottoman towns on the Danube and a centre of Tuna Vilayet. The Dunav newspaper appeared – it was the first printed in Bulgaria, the streets are renamed and numbered for the first time in Bulgarian lands. A post-office, hospital, home for the aged were founded, three empires met here for trading, Austro-Hungary, Russia, British Empire, France and Italy opened consulates in Ruschuk. Imperceptibly, the city arose from the shades of the settlement. In 1865 the Obraztsov Chiflik was founded on the place where the English Consuls farm was, Ruse developed into a centre of the Bulgarian National Revival and hosted the headquarters of the Bulgarian Revolutionary Central Committee. After it became part of modern Bulgaria on 20 February 1878, Ruse was one of the key cultural, intensive building during the period changed the citys architectural appearance to a typical Central European one
17.
Mahmud Nedim Pasha
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Mahmud Nedim Pasha was an Ottoman statesman of Georgian origin. He was the son of Mehmed Necib Pasha, a governor-general of Baghdad and he was also successively Minister of Justice and Minister of the Navy in 1869, and ultimately grand vizier twice from 1871 to 1872 and from 1875 to 1876. His administration was mostly unsuccessful from every point of view, and he was Minister of the Interior from 1879 to late 1882. This article incorporates text from a now in the public domain, Chisholm, Hugh
18.
Midhat Pasha
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Ahmed Şefik Midhat Pasha was one of the leading Ottoman statesmen during the late Tanzimat era. He was part of an elite which recognized the crisis the Empire was in. Midhat Pasha is often considered as one of the founders of the Ottoman Parliament and he was described by Caroline Finkel as a true representative of Tanzimat optimism, who believed that separatist tendencies could be best countered by demonstrating the benefits of good government. For the British, his zeal was an aberration, based on individual strength of personality. They believed Midhat Pasha could not succeed, citing the inefficient and corrupt nature of the Ottoman state, the Midhat Pasha Souq in Damascus still bears his name. Midhat Pasha was born in Istanbul in the Islamic month of Safar,1238 AH, born into an ilmiyye family, he received a private and medrese education. His father was Hadjdji Air Efendi-Zade Hadjdji Hafiz Mehemmed Eshref Efendi, the family seem to have been professed Bektashis. He spent his youth in his parents home in Vidin, Lovech and later Istanbul, in 1858 he spent six months traveling in western Europe for studies, including in Vienna, Paris, Brussels and London. In 1861 he was appointed governor of Niš, where he was instrumental in introducing the system in the Balkans. He was governor of the Danube Province from 1864 to 1868 and he clashed with the Grand Vizier Ali Pasha, which led to his appointment as governor of Baghdad in 1869, as the appointment to such a remote posting was intended as a punishment. After his arrival in Baghdad in 1869, he opened a series of government schools and he also emphasized reforming the Sixth Army, and to that end he opened military schools. He helped modernize the province, and he re-established Ottoman rule in Al-Hasa and he enacted the vilayet system in Baghdad, and applied the 1858 land decree under which miri land could be granted to individuals, under a system known as nizam tapu. Sir Henry Dobbs recognised the three years of Midhat Pashas governorship as the most stable and secure period of Ottoman rule in the region and he left the post in 1872, returning to Istanbul. He was appointed Grand Vizier by Abdulaziz I in 1872, but his first tenure came to an end, mainly due to his clashes with Abdulaziz over financial. He was dismissed two months. He also served as Minister of Justice in 1873 and 1875, the emerging internal, financial and diplomatic crises of 1875–1876 provided him with a chance to introduce the constitution of 1876. On 15 June 1876, an Ottoman infantry officer named Çerkes Hasan assaulted a meeting in the mansion of Midhat Pasha, the Minister of War Huseyin Avni Pasha was shot, and the Foreign Minister Rashid Pasha was killed, as was one of Midhats servants, named Ahmed Aga. In total,5 were killed and 10 were wounded, and Hasan was sentenced to death for the crime, Midhat Pasha was again appointed grand vizier, in place of Mehmed Rushdi Pasha, on 19 December 1876
19.
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
20.
Ottoman family tree
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This is a male family tree for all the Ottoman Sultans and their mothers. Burke’s Royal Families of the World, volume II, Africa & the Middle East. Archived from the original on September 26,2006, between Two Worlds, The Construction of the Ottoman State. Berkeley, CA, University of California Press, toynbee, Arnold J. Karpat, Kemal H. eds. The Ottoman Empires Place in World History, the Ottoman State and Its Place in World History. The Imperial Harem, Women and Sovereignty in the Ottoman Empire, new York, Oxford University Press US. Sugar, Peter F. ed. Southeastern Europe under Ottoman Rule, who is the Next Ottoman Sultan. Attempts to Change the Rule of Succession during the Nineteenth Century, Ottoman Reform and Muslim Regeneration, Studies in Honour of Butrus Abu-Manneb. Sirkeci, Istanbul, Association of Historical Research and Istanbul Research Centre, new York, Oxford University Press US. Glazer, Steven A. ed.1, Historical Setting, federal Research Division of the Library of Congress. The Legacy of Sultan Abdulhamid II, Memoirs and Biography of Sultan Selim bin Hamid Han, the Sultan of Vezirs, The Life and Times of the Ottoman Grand Vezir Mahmud Pasha Angelović. Toprak, Binnaz, ed. Islam and Political Development in Turkey, bernard Lewis, The Emergence of Modern Turkey, Publisher, Oxford University Press, USA, 3rd edition, Paperback,568 pages, ISBN0195134605, ISBN 978-0195134605 Ottoman Sultâns. Ottoman Sultâns Padişah Portreleri / Portraits of Ottoman Sultâns, the Association of Historical Research and Istanbul Research Centre with the assistance of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism of the Republic of Turkey. TURKEY, The Genealogy of the Imperial House of Osman, Publisher, The Royal Ark
21.
International Standard Book Number
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The International Standard Book Number is a unique numeric commercial book identifier. An ISBN is assigned to each edition and variation of a book, for example, an e-book, a paperback and a hardcover edition of the same book would each have a different ISBN. The ISBN is 13 digits long if assigned on or after 1 January 2007, the method of assigning an ISBN is nation-based and varies from country to country, often depending on how large the publishing industry is within a country. The initial ISBN configuration of recognition was generated in 1967 based upon the 9-digit Standard Book Numbering created in 1966, the 10-digit ISBN format was developed by the International Organization for Standardization and was published in 1970 as international standard ISO2108. Occasionally, a book may appear without a printed ISBN if it is printed privately or the author does not follow the usual ISBN procedure, however, this can be rectified later. Another identifier, the International Standard Serial Number, identifies periodical publications such as magazines, the ISBN configuration of recognition was generated in 1967 in the United Kingdom by David Whitaker and in 1968 in the US by Emery Koltay. The 10-digit ISBN format was developed by the International Organization for Standardization and was published in 1970 as international standard ISO2108, the United Kingdom continued to use the 9-digit SBN code until 1974. The ISO on-line facility only refers back to 1978, an SBN may be converted to an ISBN by prefixing the digit 0. For example, the edition of Mr. J. G. Reeder Returns, published by Hodder in 1965, has SBN340013818 -340 indicating the publisher,01381 their serial number. This can be converted to ISBN 0-340-01381-8, the check digit does not need to be re-calculated, since 1 January 2007, ISBNs have contained 13 digits, a format that is compatible with Bookland European Article Number EAN-13s. An ISBN is assigned to each edition and variation of a book, for example, an ebook, a paperback, and a hardcover edition of the same book would each have a different ISBN. The ISBN is 13 digits long if assigned on or after 1 January 2007, a 13-digit ISBN can be separated into its parts, and when this is done it is customary to separate the parts with hyphens or spaces. Separating the parts of a 10-digit ISBN is also done with either hyphens or spaces, figuring out how to correctly separate a given ISBN number is complicated, because most of the parts do not use a fixed number of digits. ISBN issuance is country-specific, in that ISBNs are issued by the ISBN registration agency that is responsible for country or territory regardless of the publication language. Some ISBN registration agencies are based in national libraries or within ministries of culture, in other cases, the ISBN registration service is provided by organisations such as bibliographic data providers that are not government funded. In Canada, ISBNs are issued at no cost with the purpose of encouraging Canadian culture. In the United Kingdom, United States, and some countries, where the service is provided by non-government-funded organisations. Australia, ISBNs are issued by the library services agency Thorpe-Bowker
22.
Ottoman Caliphate
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The Ottoman Caliphate, under the Ottoman dynasty of the Ottoman Empire, was the last Sunni Islamic caliphate of the late medieval and the early modern era. During the period of Ottoman growth, Ottoman rulers claimed caliphal authority since Murad Is conquest of Edirne in 1362, strengthened by the Peace of Westphalia and the Industrial Revolution, European powers regrouped and challenged Ottoman dominance. The Ottoman state defaulted on its loans in 1875-6, part of a financial crisis affecting much of the globe. Sultan Abdul-Hamid II, who ruled 1876–1909, felt that the Empires desperate situation could only be remedied through strong and determined leadership. Taking a hard-line against Western involvement in Ottoman affairs, he emphasized the Empires Islamic character, reasserted his status as the Caliph, refused to join the insurrectionists and had placed themselves under the control of our army, thereby recognizing American sovereignty. The Ottoman Sultan used his position as caliph to order the Sulu Sultan not to resist, collaboration between the American military and Sulu sultanate was due to the Sulu Sultan being persuaded by the Ottoman Sultan. As the Moros have never asked more than that, it is not surprising, if the reader will pause to consider what this means in men and also the millions in money, he will appreciate this wonderful piece of diplomacy, in averting a holy war. The Moro Rebellion then broke out in 1904 with war raging between the Americans and Moro Muslims and atrocities committed against Moro Muslim women and children such as the Moro Crater Massacre, the coup by the three Pashas in 1909 marked the end of his reign. Western-inclined Turkish military officers opposed to Abdul-Hamids rule had steadily organized in the form of secret societies within and outside Turkey. By 1906, the movement enjoyed the support of a significant portion of the army, the Young Turks sought to remodel administration of the Empire along Western lines. Their ideology was nationalist in character, and was a precursor of the movement that would seize control of Turkey following World War I, CUP leaders presented their ideas to the public as a revival of true Islamic principles. Under the leadership of Enver Pasha, a Turkish military officer, a counter-coup launched by soldiers loyal to the Sultan threatened the new government but ultimately failed. Many aspects of this revolt, which started within certain sections of the army in Constantinople, are still yet to be analyzed. Its generally admitted perception of a movement has sometimes been challenged. Abdul-Hamid was deposed on 13 April 1909 and he was replaced by his brother Rashid Effendi, who was proclaimed Sultan Mehmed V on 27 April. In 1911 Italy warred with the Ottomans over Libya, and Turkeys failure to defend these regions demonstrated the weakness of the Ottoman military. In 1912 Bulgaria, Serbia, Montenegro, and Greece formed the Balkan League, the ensuing Balkan Wars eliminated what little presence the Ottomans had left in Europe, and only infighting between the Balkan League allies prevented them from advancing into Anatolia. Internally, the Ottomans continued to be troubled by political instability, nationalist uprisings that had plagued the Empire sporadically for the past fifty years intensified
23.
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
24.
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
25.
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
26.
Bayezid I
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Bayezid I was the Ottoman Sultan from 1389 to 1402. He was the son of Murad I and Gülçiçek Hatun and he built one of the largest armies in the known world at the time and unsuccessfully besieged Constantinople. He was defeated and captured by Timur at the Battle of Ankara in 1402, the first major role of Bayezid was as governor of Kütahya, a city that was conquered from the Germiyanids. He was a soldier, earning the nickname of Lightning in a battle against the Karamanids. Immediately after obtaining the throne, he had his younger brother strangled to avoid a plot, in 1390, Bayezid took as a wife Princess Olivera Despina, the daughter of Prince Lazar of Serbia, who also lost his life in Kosovo. Bayezid recognized Stefan Lazarević, the son of Lazar, as the new Serbian leader, the upper Serbia resisted the Ottomans until general Pashayigit captured the city of Skopje in 1391, converting the city to an important base of operations. Meanwhile, the sultan began unifying Anatolia under his rule, forcible expansion into Muslim territories could endanger the Ottoman relationship with the gazis, who were an important source of warriors for this ruling house on the European frontier. So Bayezid began the practice to first secure fatwas, or legal rulings from Islamic scholars, however he suspected the loyalty of his Muslim Turkoman followers, for Bayezid relied heavily on his Serbian and Byzantine vassal troops to perform these conquests. In a single campaign over the summer and fall of 1390, Bayezid conquered the beyliks of Aydin, Saruhan and his major rival Sulayman, the emir of Karaman, responded by allying himself with the ruler of Sivas, Kadi Burhan al-Din and the remaining Turkish beyliks. At this point, Bayezid accepted peace proposals from Karaman, concerned that further advances would antagonize his Turkoman followers and lead them to ally with Kadi Burhan al-Din. Once peace had been made with Karaman, Bayezid moved north against Kastamonu which had given refuge to many fleeing from his forces, from 1389 to 1395 he conquered Bulgaria and northern Greece. In 1394 Bayezid crossed the River Danube to attack Wallachia, ruled at that time by Mircea the Elder, in 1394, Bayezid laid siege to Constantinople, the capital of the Byzantine Empire. Anadoluhisarı fortress was built between 1393 and 1394 as part of preparations for the Second Ottoman Siege of Constantinople, which place in 1395. On the urgings of the Byzantine emperor Manuel II Palaeologus a new crusade was organized to defeat him and this proved unsuccessful, in 1396 the Christian allies, under the leadership of the King of Hungary and future Holy Roman Emperor Sigismund, were defeated in the Battle of Nicopolis. Bayezid built the magnificent Ulu Cami in Bursa, to celebrate this victory, thus the siege of Constantinople continued, lasting until 1402. The beleaguered Byzantines had their reprieve when Bayezid fought the Timurid Empire in the East, at this time, the empire of Bayezid included Thrace, Macedonia, Bulgaria, and parts of Serbia in Europe. In Asia, his domains extended to the Taurus Mountains and his army was considered one of the best in the Islamic world. In 1397, Bayezid defeated the emir of Karaman in Akçay, killing him, in 1398, the sultan conquered the Djanik emirate and the territory of Burhan al-Din, violating the accord with Timur
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Ottoman Interregnum
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The Interregnum lasted for 11 years until the Battle of Çamurlu on 5 July 1413, when Mehmed Çelebi emerged as victor in the strife, crowned himself sultan Mehmed I, and restored the empire. Civil war broke out among the sons of Sultan Bayezid I upon his death in 1403 and his oldest son, Süleyman, with his capital at Edirne, ruled northern Greece, Macedonia, Bulgaria and Thrace. The second son, İsa Çelebi, established himself as an independent ruler at Bursa, War broke out between Mehmed and İsa, and following the battles of Ermeni-beli and Ulubad, Isa fled to Constantinople and Mehmed occupied Bursa. The subsequent battle at Karasi between Mehmed and Isa resulted in a victory for Mehmed and Isa fleeing to Karaman, Isa was later killed in a bath by agents of Mehmed. Following Isas death, Süleyman crossed the straits with a large army and he invaded Anatolia, capturing Bursa and Ankara later that year. During the stalemate in Anatolia, which lasted from 1405-1410, Mehmed sent Musa across the Black Sea to Thrace with a force to attack Suleymans territories in south-eastern Europe. This maneuver soon recalled Suleyman to Thrace, where a short, at first Suleyman had the advantage, winning the battle of Kosmidion in 1410, but in 1411 his army defected to Mûsa at Edirne and Suleyman was executed on the orders of Musa. Mûsa was now the ruler of the Ottoman dominions in Thrace, manuel II Palaiologos, the Byzantine emperor, had been the ally of Suleyman, Mûsa therefore besieged Constantinople. Manuel called on Mehmed to protect him, and Mehmeds Ottomans now garrisoned Constantinople against Musas Ottomans of Thrace, Mehmed made several unsuccessful sallies against his brothers troops, and was obliged to re-cross the Bosporus to quell a revolt that had broken out in his own territories. Mûsa now pressed the siege of Constantinople, Mehmed returned to Thrace, and obtained the assistance of Stefan Lazarevic, the Serbian Despot. The armies of the rival Ottoman brothers met on the plain of Chamurli, Hassan, the Agha of the Janissaries of Mehmed, stepped out before the ranks and tried to get the troops to change sides. Mûsa rushed towards Hassan and killed him, but was wounded by an officer who had accompanied Hassan. Mûsas Ottomans fought well, but the battle was won by Mehmed, Mûsa fled, was later captured and strangled. With Mûsa dead, Mehmed was the surviving son of the late Sultan Bayezid I. The Interregnum was a example of the fratricide that would become common in Ottoman successions. During the Interregnum, only Mehmed Celebi minted coins titling himself Sultan and his brother Suleymans coins called himself, Emir Suleyman b. Bayezid, while Musas coins stated, Musa b, no coins of Isas have survived. The Late Medieval Balkans, A Critical Survey from the Late Twelfth Century to the Ottoman Conquest, ann Arbor, University of Michigan Press
28.
Mehmed I
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Mehmed I, also known as Mehmed Çelebi or Kirişci, was the Ottoman Sultan from 1413 to 1421. The fourth son of Sultan Bayezid I and Devlet Hatun, he fought with his brothers control of the Ottoman realm in the Ottoman Interregnum. Starting from the province of Rûm he managed to bring first Anatolia and then the European territories under his control, reuniting the Ottoman state by 1413, and ruling it until his death in 1421. Mehmed was born in 1386 or 1387 as the son of Sultan Bayezid I and one of his wives. Following Ottoman custom, when he reached adolescence in 1399, he was sent to gain experience as provincial governor over the Rûm Eyalet, on 20 July 1402, his father Bayezid was defeated in the Battle of Ankara by the Turko-Mongol conqueror and ruler Timur. The brothers were rescued from the battlefield, Mehmed being saved by Bayezid Pasha, Mehmed later made Bayezid Pasha his grand vizier. The early Ottoman empire had no regulated succession, and according to Turkish tradition, of Mehmeds brothers, the eldest, Ertuğrul, had died in 1400, while the next in line, Mustafa, was a prisoner of Timur. After winning the Interregnum, Mehmed crowned himself sultan in the Thracian city of Edirne that lay in the European part of the empire, becoming Mehmed I. He consolidated his power, made Edirne the most important of the capitals, and conquered parts of Albania, the Jandarid emirate. Taking many of his achievements into consideration, Mehmed is widely known as the founder of the Ottoman Sultanate. Mehmed refused and met Mustafas forces in battle, easily defeating them, Mustafa escaped to the Byzantine city of Thessaloniki, but after an agreement with Mehmed, the Byzantine emperor Manuel II Palaiologos exiled Mustafa to the island of Lemnos. However, Mehmed still faced problems, first being the problem of his nephew Orhan. Furthermore, as a result of the Battle of Ankara and other civil wars, a very powerful social and religious movement arose in the empire and became disruptive. The movement was by Sheikh Bedreddin, a famous Muslim Sufi and he was an eminent Ulema, born of a Greek mother and a Muslim father in Simavna southwest of Edirne. Mehmeds brother Musa had made Bedreddin his qadi of the army, in 1416, Sheikh Bedreddin started his rebellion against the throne. After a four-year struggle, he was captured by Mehmeds grand vizier Bayezid Pasha and hanged in the city off Serres. He was buried in Bursa, in a mausoleum erected by himself near the mosque which he built there. Mehmed I also completed another mosque in Bursa, which his grandfather Murad I had commenced, Şehzade Hatun, daughter of Dividdar Ahmed Paşa, third ruler of Kutluşah of Canik, Emine Hatun, daughter of Şaban Süli Bey, fifth ruler of Dulkadirids
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Murad II
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Murad II was the Ottoman Sultan from 1421 to 1444 and 1446 to 1451. Murad IIs reign was marked by the war he fought against the Christian feudal lords of the Balkans and the Turkish beyliks in Anatolia. He was brought up in Amasya, and ascended the throne on the death of his father Mehmed I and his mother was Valide Sultan Emine Hatun, his fathers third consort. Murad was born in June 1404 to Sultan Mehmed I and his wife Emine Hatun, in 1410, Murad came along with his father to the Ottoman capital, Edirne. After his father ascended to the Ottoman throne, he made Murad governor of the Amasya Sanjak, Murad remained at Amasya until the death of Mehmed I in 1421. Murads reign was troubled by insurrection early on, the Byzantine Emperor, Manuel II, released the pretender Mustafa Çelebi from confinement and acknowledged him as the legitimate heir to the throne of Bayezid I. The Byzantine Emperor had first secured a stipulation that Mustafa should, if successful, the pretender was landed by the Byzantine galleys in the European dominion of the sultan and for a time made rapid progress. Many Turkish soldiers joined him, and he defeated and killed the veteran general Beyazid Pasha, Mustafa defeated Murads army and declared himself Sultan of Adrianople. He then crossed the Dardanelles to Asia with a large army, Mustafa was out-manoeuvered in the middle of the field, and his troops, whose confidence in his person and cause he had lost by his violence and incapacity, passed over in large numbers to Murad II. Mustafa took refuge in the city of Gallipoli, but the sultan, Murad II then formed a new army called Azeb in 1421 and marched through the Byzantine Empire and laid siege to Constantinople. Murad had to abandon the siege of Constantinople in order to deal with his rebellious brother and he caught Prince Mustafa and executed him. The Anatolian states that had been plotting against him — Aydinids, Germiyanids, Menteshe and Teke — were annexed. Murad II then declared war against Venice, the Karamanid Emirate, Serbia, the Karamanids were defeated in 1428 and Venice withdrew in 1432 following the defeat at the second Siege of Thessalonica in 1430. In the 1430s Murad captured vast territories in the Balkans and succeeded in annexing Serbia in 1439, in 1441 the Holy Roman Empire and Poland joined the Serbian-Hungarian coalition. Murad II won the Battle of Varna in 1444 against János Hunyadi, Murad II relinquished his throne in 1444 to his son Mehmed II, but a Janissary revolt in the Empire forced him to return. In 1448 he defeated the Christian coalition at the Second Battle of Kosovo, when the Balkan front was secured, Murad II turned east to defeat Timurs son, Shah Rokh, and the emirates of Karamanid and Çorum-Amasya. In 1450 Murad II led his army into Albania and unsuccessfully besieged the Castle of Kruje in an effort to defeat the resistance led by Skanderbeg, in the winter of 1450–1451, Murad II fell ill, and died in Edirne. He was succeeded by his son Mehmed II, Murad II is portrayed by İlker Kurt in 2012 film Fetih 1453
30.
Mehmed the Conqueror
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Mehmed II, commonly known as Mehmed the Conqueror, was an Ottoman sultan who ruled first for a short time from August 1444 to September 1446, and later from February 1451 to May 1481. At the age of 21, he conquered Constantinople and brought an end to the Eastern Roman Empire, Mehmed continued his conquests in Anatolia with its reunification and in Southeast Europe as far west as Bosnia. Mehmed is considered a hero in modern-day Turkey and parts of the wider Muslim world, among other things, Istanbuls Fatih district, Fatih Sultan Mehmet Bridge and Fatih Mosque are named after him. Mehmed II was born on 30 March 1432, in Edirne and his father was Sultan Murad II and his mother Hüma Valide Hatun, born in the town of Devrekani, Kastamonu. When Mehmed II was eleven years old he was sent to Amasya to govern and thus gain experience, Sultan Murad II also sent a number of teachers for him to study under. This Islamic education had an impact in molding Mehmeds mindset. He was influenced in his practice of Islamic epistemology by practitioners of science - particularly by his mentor, Molla Gürani -, after Murad II made peace with the Karamanids in Anatolia in August 1444, he abdicated the throne to his 12-year-old son Mehmed II. In Mehmed IIs first reign, he defeated the crusade led by János Hunyadi after the Hungarian incursions into his country broke the conditions of the truce Peace of Szeged. Cardinal Julian Cesarini, the representative of the pope, had convinced the king of Hungary that breaking the truce with Muslims was not a betrayal, at this time Mehmed II asked his father Murad II to reclaim the throne, but Murad II refused. Angry at his father, who had long retired to a contemplative life in southwestern Anatolia, Mehmed II wrote, If you are the Sultan, come. If I am the Sultan I hereby order you to come and it was only after receiving this letter that Murad II led the Ottoman army and won the Battle of Varna in 1444. When Mehmed II ascended the throne again in 1451 he devoted himself to strengthening the Ottoman navy, having completed his fortresses, Mehmed proceeded to levy a toll on ships passing within reach of their cannon. Abu Ayyub al-Ansari, the companion and standard bearer of Muhammad, had died during the first Siege of Constantinople, as Mehmed IIs army approached Constantinople, Mehmeds sheikh Akshamsaddin discovered the tomb of Abu Ayyub al-Ansari. After the conquest, Mehmed built Eyüp Sultan Mosque at the site to emphasize the importance of the conquest to the Islamic world, in early April, the Siege of Constantinople began. At first, the walls held off the Turks, even though Mehmeds army used the new bombard designed by Orban. The harbor of the Golden Horn was blocked by a boom chain, thus the Byzantines stretched their troops over a longer portion of the walls. About a month later, Constantinople fell, on 29 May, after this conquest, Mehmed moved the Ottoman capital from Adrianople to Constantinople. The contemporary scholar George of Trebizond supported his claim, the claim was recognized by the Eastern Orthodox Church, but not by the Catholic Church and most of, if not all, Western Europe
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Bayezid II
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Bayezid II or Sultân Bayezid-î Velî was the eldest son and successor of Mehmed II, ruling as Sultan of the Ottoman Empire from 1481 to 1512. During his reign, Bayezid II consolidated the Ottoman Empire and thwarted a Safavid rebellion soon before abdicating his throne to his son and he is most notable for evacuating Jews from Spain after the proclamation of the Alhambra Decree and resettling them throughout the Ottoman Empire. Bayezid II was the son of Mehmed II and Emine Gülbahar Hatun, Bayezid II married Gülbahar Hatun, who was the mother of Bayezid IIs successor, Selim I and nephew of Sitti Mükrime Hatun. Bayezid IIs overriding concern was the quarrel with his brother Cem, having been defeated by his brothers armies, Cem sought protection from the Knights of St. John in Rhodes. Eventually, the Knights handed Cem over to Pope Innocent VIII, the Pope thought of using Cem as a tool to drive the Turks out of Europe, but as the papal crusade failed to come to fruition, Cem was left to languish and die in a Neapolitan prison. Bayezid II paid both the Knights Hospitaller and the pope to keep his brother prisoner, Bayezid II ascended the Ottoman throne in 1481. Like his father, Bayezid II was a patron of western and eastern culture, unlike many other Sultans, he worked hard to ensure a smooth running of domestic politics, which earned him the epithet of the Just. The last of these ended in 1501 with Bayezid II in control of the whole Peloponnese. Ottoman authority in Anatolia was indeed seriously threatened during this period and at one point Bayezid IIs grand vizier, in July 1492, the new state of Spain expelled its Jewish and Muslim populations as part of the Spanish Inquisition. Bayezid II sent out the Ottoman Navy under the command of Admiral Kemal Reis to Spain in 1492 in order to evacuate them safely to Ottoman lands and he sent out proclamations throughout the empire that the refugees were to be welcomed. He granted the refugees the permission to settle in the Ottoman Empire and he ridiculed the conduct of Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella I of Castile in expelling a class of people so useful to their subjects. You venture to call Ferdinand a wise ruler, he said to his courtiers, he who has impoverished his own country and enriched mine. Bayezid addressed a firman to all the governors of his European provinces, ordering them not only to refrain from repelling the Spanish refugees and he threatened with death all those who treated the Jews harshly or refused them admission into the empire. Moses Capsali, who helped to arouse the sultans friendship for the Jews, was most energetic in his assistance to the exiles. He made a tour of the communities and was instrumental in imposing a tax upon the rich, the Muslims and Jews of al-Andalus contributed much to the rising power of the Ottoman Empire by introducing new ideas, methods and craftsmanship. The first printing press in Constantinople was established by the Sephardic Jews in 1493, on September 14,1509, Constantinople was devastated by an earthquake. During Bayezid IIs final years, a battle developed between his sons Selim I and Ahmet. Ahmet unexpectedly captured Karaman, an Ottoman city, and began marching to Constantinople to exploit his triumph, fearing for his safety, Selim staged a revolt in Thrace but was defeated by Bayezid and forced to flee back to the Crimean Peninsula
32.
Selim I
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Selim I, known as Selim the Grim or Selim the Resolute, was the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire from 1512 to 1520. On the eve of his death in 1520, the Ottoman Empire spanned about 576,900 sq mi and his conquests dramatically shifted the empires geographical and cultural center of gravity away from the Balkans and toward the Middle East. Born in Amasya around 1470, Selim was the youngest son of Bayezid II, Selims mother was Gülbahar Hatun, a Turkish princess from the Dulkadir State centered around Elbistan in Maraş, her father was Alaüddevle Bozkurt Bey, the eleventh ruler of the Dulkadirs. Some academics state that Selims mother was a lady named Gülbahar Hatun, by 1512, Şehzade Ahmet was the favorite candidate to succeed his father. Bayezid, who was reluctant to continue his rule over the empire, angered with this announcement, Selim rebelled, and while he lost the first battle against his fathers forces, Selim ultimately dethroned his father. Selim ordered the purge of Bayezid to a far away sanjak, Selim put his brothers and nephews to death upon his accession in order to eliminate potential pretenders to the throne. His nephew Şehzade Murad, son of the heir to the throne Şehzade Ahmet. Selim I was described as tall, with broad shoulders. He was skilled in politics and was said to be fond of fighting, in 1494, at Trabzon, he married Hafsa Sultan. By 1510, he had conquered the whole of Iran and Azerbaijan, southern Dagestan, Mesopotamia, Armenia, Khorasan, Eastern Anatolia and he was a great threat to his Sunni Muslim neighbors to the west. In 1511, Ismail had supported a pro Shia/Safavid uprising in Anatolia, in 1514, Selim I attacked Ismails kingdom to stop the spread of Shiism into Ottoman dominions. Selim and Ismāil had been exchanging a series of belligerent letters prior to the attack, Selim I defeated Ismāil at the Battle of Chaldiran in 1514. Ismāils army was more mobile and their soldiers were better prepared, Ismāil was wounded and almost captured in battle, and Selim I entered the Iranian capital of Tabriz in triumph on September 5, but did not linger. The Battle of Chaldiran was of significance, as the reluctance of Shah Ismail to accept the advantages of modern firearms. After the battle, Selim, referring to Ismail, stated that his adversary was, Always drunk to the point of losing his mind and totally neglectful of the affairs of the state. Selim then conquered the Mamluk Sultanate of Egypt, defeating the Mamluk Egyptians first at the Battle of Marj Dabiq, and then at the Battle of Ridanieh. This led to the Ottoman annexation of the sultanate, from Syria and Palestine in Sham, to Hejaz and Tihamah in the Arabian Peninsula. This permitted him to extend Ottoman power to the Muslim holy cities of Mecca and Medina, rather than style himself the Ḥākimül-Ḥaremeyn, or The Ruler of The Two Holy Cities, he accepted the more pious title Ḫādimül-Ḥaremeyn, or The Servant of The Two Holy Cities
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Suleiman the Magnificent
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Suleiman I, commonly known as Suleiman the Magnificent in the West and Kanuni in his realm, was the tenth and longest-reigning sultan of the Ottoman Empire from 1520 to his death in 1566. Under his administration, the Ottoman state ruled over 15 to 25 million people, Suleiman became a prominent monarch of 16th-century Europe, presiding over the apex of the Ottoman Empires economic, military and political power. Suleiman personally led Ottoman armies in conquering the Christian strongholds of Belgrade and he annexed much of the Middle East in his conflict with the Safavids and large areas of North Africa as far west as Algeria. Under his rule, the Ottoman fleet dominated the seas from the Mediterranean to the Red Sea, at the helm of an expanding empire, Suleiman personally instituted major legislative changes relating to society, education, taxation and criminal law. His reforms, carried out in conjunction with the chief judicial official Ebussuud Efendi. He was a poet and goldsmith, he also became a great patron of culture, overseeing the Golden age of the Ottoman Empire in its artistic, literary. Breaking with Ottoman tradition, Suleiman married Hürrem Sultan, a woman from his harem, a Christian of Rusyn origin who converted to Islam, and their son Selim II succeeded Suleiman following his death in 1566 after 46 years of rule. Suleimans previous heirs apparent Mehmed and Mustafa had died, the former from smallpox and his other son Bayezid was executed in 1561 on Suleimans orders, along with his four sons, after a rebellion. Although scholars no longer believe that the empire declined after his death, in the decades after Suleiman, the empire began to experience significant political, institutional, and economic changes, in a period often referred to as the Transformation of the Ottoman Empire. Suleiman the Magnificent, as he was known in the West, was also called Suleiman the First and it is unclear when exactly the term Kanunî first came to be used as an epithet for Suleiman. It is entirely absent from sixteenth and seventeenth-century Ottoman sources, Suleiman was born in Trabzon along the east coast of the Black Sea to Şehzade Selim, probably on 6 November 1494, although this date is not known with absolute certainty. His mother was Hafsa Sultan, a convert to Islam of unknown origins, at the age of seven, Suleiman was sent to study science, history, literature, theology and military tactics in the schools of the imperial Topkapı Palace in Constantinople. As a young man, he befriended Pargalı Ibrahim, a slave who became one of his most trusted advisers. From the age of seventeen, he was appointed as the governor of first Kaffa, then Manisa, upon the death of his father, Selim I, Suleiman entered Constantinople and ascended to the throne as the tenth Ottoman Sultan. Facial hair is evident but only barely, the sultan appears friendly and in good humor. Rumor has it that Suleiman is aptly named, enjoys reading, is knowledgeable, some historians claim that in his youth Suleiman had an admiration for Alexander the Great. Upon succeeding his father, Suleiman began a series of military conquests, Suleiman encircled Belgrade and began a series of heavy bombardments from an island in the Danube. Belgrade, with a garrison of only 700 men, and receiving no aid from Hungary, the fall of Christendoms major strongholds spread fear across Europe
34.
Selim II
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Selim II, also known as Selim the Sot and as Sarı Selim, was the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire from 1566 until his death in 1574. He was a son of Suleiman the Magnificent and Haseki Hürrem Sultan, Selim was born in Constantinople, on 28 May 1524, during the reign of his father Suleiman the Magnificent. His mother was Hürrem Sultan, a slave and concubine who was born an Orthodox priests daughter, Selim had two elder brothers, Mehmed and Abdullah, one elder sister Mihrimah, and two younger brothers, Bayezid and Cihangir. He also had half-siblings including Mustafa, and Raziye, in 1545, at Konya, Selim married Nurbanu Sultan, whose background is disputed. It is said that she was originally named Cecelia Venier Baffo, or Rachel and she was the mother of Murad III, Selims successor. Hubbi Hatun, a poet of the sixteenth century, was a lady-in-waiting to him. After gaining the throne after palace intrigue and fraternal dispute, he succeeded as sultan on 7 September 1566, against Russia, Selim was less fortunate, the first encounter between the Ottoman Empire and her future northern rival gave presage of disaster to come. Early in 1570 the ambassadors of Ivan IV of Russia concluded at Constantinople a treaty which restored friendly relations between the Sultan and the Tsar, the Empires shattered fleets were soon restored and the Ottomans maintained control of the Mediterranean. In August 1574, months before Selims death, the Ottomans regained control of Tunis from Spain, during his reign, his elder sister Mihrimah Sultan acted as his Valide Sultan, because his mother Hürrem Sultan died before his reign began. However, Sultan Selim was loved by the people because of his character and his sensitive attitude. He is known for giving back to Mahidevran Gülbahar her status and her wealth and he also built the tomb of his eldest brother, Şehzade Mustafa, who was executed in 1553. Selims first and only wife, Nurbanu Sultan, was a Venetian who was the mother of his successor Murad III, as a Haseki Sultan she received 1,000 aspers a day, while lower-ranking concubines who were the mothers of princes received 40 aspers a day. Selim bestowed upon Nurbanu 110,000 ducats as a dowry, according to Leslie Peirce, Selim had four other concubines, each one the mother of a single prince. Consorts Nurbanu Sultan, mother of Murad III, Mother of Şehzade Mehmed, Mother of Şehzade Mustafa, Mother of Şehzade Suleiman, in a spate of petitions to the Sultan the two defended their respective positions. Koca Sinan proved the stronger and Lala Mustafa was dismissed from command of the Yemen campaign, to mark his continuing favour, however, Selim created for him the position of sixth vezir of the governing council of the empire. --> Finkel, Caroline, Osmans Dream, Basic Books,2005 and this article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain, Chisholm, Hugh, ed. Selim. Ancestry of Sultana Nur-Banu John Julius Norwich, A History of Venice, ISBN 0-679-72197-5 Media related to Selim II at Wikimedia Commons Selim II Tomb
35.
Murad III
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Murad III was the sultan of the Ottoman Empire from 1574 until his death in 1595. Born in Bozdağan or Manisa, Şehzade Murad was the son of Sultan Selim II, after his ceremonial circumcision in 1557, Murad was appointed sancakbeyi of Akşehir by Suleyman I in 1558. At the age of 18 he was appointed sancakbeyi of Saruhan, suleiman died when Murad was 20, and his father became the new sultan. Selim II broke with tradition by sending only his oldest son out of the palace to govern a province, Selim died in 1574 and was succeeded by Murad, who began his reign by having his five younger brothers strangled. His authority was undermined by the influences, more specifically. The power had only been maintained under Selim II by the genius of the powerful Grand Vizier Mehmed Sokollu who remained in office until his assassination in October 1579, during Murads reign the northern borders with the Habsburg Monarchy were defended by the Bosnian governor Hasan Predojević. The reign of Murad III was marked by exhausting wars on the western and eastern fronts. The Ottomans also faced defeats during battles such as the Battle of Sisak, the Ottomans had been at peace with the neighbouring rivalling Safavid Empire since 1555, per the Treaty of Amasya, that for some time had settled border disputed. But in 1577 Murad declared war, starting the Ottoman–Safavid War and he was influenced by viziers Lala Kara Mustafa Pasha and Sinan Pasha and disregarded the opposing counsel of Grand Vizier Mehmed Sokollu. The war would drag on for 12 years, ending with the Istanbul Treaty of 1590, Murads reign was a time of financial stress for the Ottoman state. To keep up with changing military techniques, the Ottomans trained infantrymen in the use of firearms, by 1580 an influx of silver from the New World had caused high inflation and social unrest, especially among Janissaries and government officials who were paid in debased currency. Deprivation from the rebellions, coupled with the pressure of over-population, was especially felt in Anatolia. Competition for positions within the government grew fierce, leading to bribery, numerous envoys and letters were exchanged between Elizabeth I and Sultan Murad III. This diplomacy would be continued under Murads successor Mehmed III, by both the sultan and Safiye Sultan alike, following the example of his father Selim II, Murad was the second Ottoman sultan who never went on campaign during his reign, instead spending it entirely in Istanbul. During the final years of his reign, he did not even leave Topkapı Palace, for two consecutive years he did not attend the Friday procession to the imperial mosque—an unprecedented breaking of custom. Murad withdrew from his subjects and spent the majority of his reign keeping to the company of few people and their negative portrayals of Murad influenced later historians. Both historians also accused Murad of sexual excess, before becoming sultan, Murad had been loyal to Safiye Sultan, his Venetian-born concubine who had given him a son, Mehmed, and two daughters. His monogamy was disapproved of by his mother Nurbanu, who worried that Murad needed more sons to succeed him in case Mehmed died young and she also worried about Safiyes influence over her son and the Ottoman dynasty
36.
Mehmed III
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Mehmed III was Sultan of the Ottoman Empire from 1595 until his death in 1603. He was born at the Manisa Palace, during the reign of his great-grandfather, Suleiman the Magnificent and he was the son of Şehzade Murad, himself the son of Şehzade Selim, who was the son of Sultan Suleiman and Hürrem Sultan. His mother was Safiye Sultan, an Albanian from the Dukagjin highlands and his great-grandfather died the year he was born and his grandfather became the new Sultan, Selim II. His grandfather Sultan Selim II died when Mehmed was 8 and Mehmeds father, Murad III, Mehmed thus became Crown Prince until his fathers death in 1595, when he was 28 years old. Mehmed III remains notorious even in Ottoman history for having nineteen of his brothers and half-brothers executed to secure power and they were all strangled by his deaf-mutes. Mehmed III was a ruler, leaving government to his mother Safiye Sultan. His first major problem was the rivalry between two of his viziers, Serdar Ferhad Pasha and Koca Sinan Pasha, and their supporters and his mother and her son-in-law Damat Ibrahim Pasha supported Koca Sinan Pasha, and prevented Mehmed III from taking control of the issue himself. The issue grew to cause major disturbances by janissaries, on 7 July 1595, Mehmed III finally sacked Serdar Ferhad Pasha from the position of Grand Vizier due to his failure in Wallachia and replaced him with Sinan. The major event of his reign was the Austro-Ottoman War in Hungary, Ottoman defeats in the war caused Mehmed III to take personal command of the army, the first sultan to do so since Suleiman I in 1566. Accompanied by the Sultan, the Ottomans conquered Eger in 1596, upon hearing of the Habsburg armys approach, Mehmed wanted to dismiss the army and return to Istanbul. Upon returning to Istanbul in victory, Mehmed told his Vezirs that he would campaign again, the next year the Venetian Bailo in Istanbul noted, the doctors declared that the Sultan cannot leave for war on account of his bad health, produced by excesses of eating and drinking. In reward for his services at the war, Cigalazade Yusuf Sinan Pasha was made Grand Vizier in 1596, however, with pressure from the court and his mother, Mehmed reinstated Damat Ibrahim Pasha to this position shortly afterwards. In 1600, Ottoman forces under Tiryaki Hasan Pasha captured Nagykanizsa after a 40-day siege, another major event of his reign was the Jelali revolts in Anatolia. Karayazıcı Abdülhalim, a former Ottoman official, captured the city of Urfa, in 1601, Abdülhalim fled to the vicinity of Samsun after being defeated by the forces under Sokulluzade Hasan Pasha, the governor of Baghdad. However, his brother, Deli Hasan, killed Sokulluzade Hasan Pasha and he then marched on to Kütahya, captured and burned the city. In 1599, the year of Mehmed IIIs reign, Queen Elizabeth I sent a convoy of gifts to the Ottoman court. These gifts were intended for the sultans predecessor, Murad III. Included in these gifts was a large jewel-studded clockwork organ that was assembled on the slope of the Royal Private Garden by a team of engineers including Thomas Dallam
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Ahmed I
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Ahmed I was the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire from 1603 until his death in 1617. Ahmeds reign is noteworthy for marking the end of the Ottoman tradition of royal fratricide and he is also well known for his construction of the Blue Mosque, one of the most famous mosques in Turkey. Ahmed was born on 18 April 1590 at the Manisa Palace, Manisa, when his father Şehzade Mehmed was still a prince, after his grandfather Murad IIIs death in 1595, his father came to Istanbul and ascended the throne as Sultan Mehmed III. His father ordered the execution of nineteen of his brothers and half brothers and his elder brother Şehzade Mahmud was also executed by his own father on 7 June 1603, just before his own death on 22 December 1603. Mahmud was buried along with his mother in a mausoleum built by Ahmed in Şehzade Mosque. Ahmed ascended the throne after his fathers death in 1603, when ascended the throne, his powerful grandmother Safiye Sultan was still alive. He broke with the traditional fratricide and sent his brother Mustafa to live at the old palace at Bayezit along with their grandmother Safiye Sultan. A far lost uncle of Ahmed, Yahya, resented his accession to the Ottoman throne in 1603, in contrast to previous enthronements, Ahmed did not order the execution of his brother Mustafa, thus the Ottoman tradition of royal fratricide was brought to an end. This was most likely due to Ahmeds young age - he had not yet demonstrated his ability to sire children and his brothers execution would have endangered the dynasty, and thus he was spared. In the earlier part of his reign Ahmed I showed decision and vigor, the new borders were drawn per exactly the same line as confirmed in the Peace of Amasya of 1555. Upon ascending the throne, Ahmed I appointed Cigalazade Yusuf Sinan Pasha as the commander of the eastern army, despite the conditions being favourable, Sinan Pasha decided to stay for the winter in Van, but then marched to Erzurum to stop an incoming Safavid attack. This caused unrest within the army and the year was practically wasted for the Ottomans, the Ottoman army was routed Urmia and had to flee firstly to Van and then to Diyarbekir. Here, Sinan Pasha sparked a rebellion by executing the Beylerbey of Aleppo, Canbulatoğlu Hüseyin Pasha and he soon died himself and the Safavid army was able to capture Ganja, Shirvan and Shamakhi in Azerbaijan. Under Mehmed Pasha, the army recaptured Pest and Vác, but failed to capture Esztergom as the siege was lifted due to unfavourable weather. Meanwhile, the King of Transylvania, Stephen Bocskay, who struggled for the independence and had formerly supported the Habsburgs. Upon the promise of help, his forces joined the Ottoman forces in Belgrade. With this help, the Ottoman army besieged Esztergom and captured it on 4 November 1605, bocskai, with Ottoman help, captured Nové Zámky and forces under Tiryaki Hasan Pasha took Veszprém and Palota. Sarhoş İbrahim Pasha, the Beylerbey of Nagykanizsa, attacked the Austrian region of Istria, however, with Jelali revolts in Anatolia more dangerous than ever and a defeat in the eastern front, Mehmed Pasha was called to Constantinople
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Mustafa I
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He was born in the Manisa Palace, as the younger brother of Ahmed I. His mother was Halime Sultan, an Abkhazian lady, before 1603 it was customary for an Ottoman Sultan to have his brothers executed shortly after he gained the throne. But when the thirteen-year-old Ahmed I was enthroned in 1603, he spared the life of the twelve-year-old Mustafa, Mustafa might have been left alive because Ahmed had not yet produced any sons, so at the time Mustafa was his only heir. Though Ahmed went on to several sons, he did not execute Mustafa. Another factor in Mustafas survival is the influence of Kösem Sultan, however, the reports of foreign ambassadors suggest that Ahmed actually liked his brother. If Osman became Sultan, he would try to execute his half-brothers. This scenario later became a reality when Osman II executed his brother Mehmed in 1621, until Ahmeds death in 1617, Mustafa lived in the Old palace, along with his mother, and grandmother Safiye Sultan. Ahmeds death created a dilemma never before experienced by the Ottoman Empire, multiple princes were now eligible for the Sultanate, and all of them lived in Topkapı Palace. A court faction headed by the Şeyhülislam Esad Efendi and Sofu Mehmed Pasha decided to enthrone Mustafa instead of Ahmeds son Osman, Sofu Mehmed argued that Osman was too young to be enthroned without causing adverse comment among the populace. The Chief Black Eunuch Mustafa Agha objected, citing Mustafas mental problems, Mustafas rise created a new succession principle of seniority that would last until the end of the Empire. It was the first time an Ottoman Sultan was succeeded by his brother instead of his son and it was hoped that regular social contact would improve Mustafas mental health, but his behavior remained eccentric. He pulled off the turbans of his viziers and yanked their beards, others observed him throwing coins to birds and fish. The Ottoman historian İbrahim Peçevi wrote this situation was seen by all men of state and the people, Mustafa was never more than a tool of court cliques at the Topkapı Palace. In 1618, after a rule, another palace faction deposed him in favour of his young nephew Osman II. The conflict between the Janissaries and Osman II presented him with a second chance, after a Janissary rebellion led to the deposition and assassination of Osman II in 1622, Mustafa was restored to the throne and held it for another year. Nevertheless, according to Baki Tezcan, there is not enough evidence to establish that Mustafa was mentally imbalanced when he came to the throne. Mustafa made a number of excursions to the arsenal and the docks, examining various sorts of arms and taking an active interest in the munitions supply of the army. After Ahmeds death, he completed the outer court of the Blue mosque, the mausoleum
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Osman II
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Osman II, commonly known in Turkey as Genç Osman, was the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire from 1618 until his death by regicide on 20 May 1622. Osman II was born at Topkapı Palace, Constantinople, the son of Sultan Ahmed I and his first wife Mahfiruz Hatun, according to some sources either a Greek or Evdoksiya, a Serbian. Osmans failure to capture the throne at the death of his father Ahmed may have been caused by the absence of a mother to lobby in his favor, his own mother probably already dead or in exile. He ascended the throne at the age of 14 as the result of a coup détat against his uncle Mustafa I the Intestable. The basic and exceptional weakness from which Osman II suffered was the absence of a female power basis in the harem. From 1620 until Osmans death, a governess was appointed as a stand-in valide, according to Piterberg, Osman II did not have haseki sultan, opposite with Peirce who claim that Ayşe was Osmans haseki. But it is clear that Ayşe could not take valides role during her spouses reign, seeking a counterweight to Janissary influence, Osman II closed their coffee shops and started planning to create a new and more loyal army consisting of Anatolian sekbans. The result was an uprising by the Janissaries, who promptly imprisoned the young sultan in Yedikule Fortress in Istanbul. Transformation of the Ottoman Empire Media related to Osman II at Wikimedia Commons
