The Ottoman Empire and the World Around It - Course Information

~ INTRODUCTION ~ 3
case of Venice, France, England or the Netherlands, special privileges formally
granted by the Ottoman sultans (ahidname, or ‘capitulations’ in European parlance)
established what the subjects of the rulers in question were allowed or
forbidden to do. 5 Long-term residents from Venice, France or England could be
found in Istanbul, Izmir or Aleppo; moreover, during the period that concerns us
here, contacts were facilitated by the absence of any war between the Ottoman
sultan and the rulers of England or France.
On a different level, inter-communication between the Empire and neighbouring
states also extended to culturally valued items: maps, books and, in spite of
the Islamic ban on images, even sultans’ portraits or pictures showing the exotic
animals of the American continent circulated between the Ottoman realm and its
western neighbours. One of the major aims of this book is to demonstrate how
permeable the frontiers really were in many instances. Of course, this implies
that the neat dichotomy between the ‘house of Islam’ and the ‘house of war’ is
not very useful for the purposes of this study, as it masks the much more complicated
relationships existing in the real world.
Moreover, while fully recognizing that wars between the Ottoman Empire and
its neighbours were frequent, and relations even in peacetime marred by numerous
misunderstandings both intentional and otherwise, we will here be concerned
also with many relationships in which military conflict had no role. These
include trade, but also the accommodation of pilgrims, gentlemen travelling for
pleasure or instruction, and even Christian missionaries. Thus it is one of our
major points that, while the dichotomies established by Islamic law were certainly
important, the Ottoman elite also governed a far-flung empire that was at
least an indirect heir to the administrative lore of the Sasanid, caliphal and Byzantine
traditions. 6 More importantly, in my view, the Ottoman ruling group also
made a large number of very matter-of-fact decisions, based on expediency and
taking into account what was possible under given circumstances.
This emphasis on pragmatism, ‘muddling through’ to use an expression current
among another group of great empire-builders, may appear old-fashioned to
some readers today. In the present conjuncture, it has become current to emphasize
religion-based oppositions between the Empire and the non-Muslim world,
and also the central place of religion in the Ottoman world view. It would certainly
be unrealistic to deny the centrality of Islam; but in my perspective, it was
exactly because the elites had no doubt about this centrality that they were able to
react to the ‘people outside the pale’ with much more pragmatism than would be
possible for an elite whose members felt that the basis of their rule was under
constant threat, and therefore in need of permanent defence. As a result the rules
of the political game were quite often developed and brought into play without
there being a great need for day-to-day references to religious law. In a sense the
present volume thus can be read as a plea for the importance of the sultans’ prerogative
to set the ground rules by promulgating decrees (kanun). Moreover,
since we are concerned with a period in which some sultans were quite young or
for other reasons unable to govern in person, this situation meant that the