The Legacy of the Past -- Ottoman and Safavid Empires

1) the Ottoman Empire

                    -historical origins
                    -political organization
                    -economy
                    -the Ottomans and the world

            2) the Safavid Empire

3) the European challenge and the Midddle Eastern response

I.  Ottoman Empire

1) historical origins

-destruction of the old Abbasid system with the Mongol invasions of the 1200's and 1300's, followed by a period of intense decentralization of power.  To some extent just giving a push to a system that had lost its vitality and ability to control its empire.  Out of the power vacuum come new dynasties (Mughal Empire in India ; Safavid in Iran ).  Most of the Arab world came under the control of the greatest of these new dynasties -- the Ottomans.

-Origins in the small principalities the sprang up in Anatolia after the Mongol invasions of the 1200's:  their raison d'etat supplied by the confrontation with the remnants of the Byzantine Empire, which still controlled Constantinople and parts of Anatolia.  In the early 1300's the founder of the house, Osman, and his son won military successes against the Byzantines and set up a state in western Anatolia .  Within 100 years that state's reach began to extend into southeastern Europe .  By 1453 had control of most of the territory surrounding the great capital, and finally took it over (something no other Muslim state had been able to do in 700 years).

-Ottoman military success attributable to able leadership, but also the use of gunpowder, which they introduced to warfare in the region.  With control of Constantinople (renamed Istanbul ), Ottomans can dominate much of the east-west trade that was channeled through the city.  They built a navy to dominate the eastern Mediterranean , and extended their control to Egypt and the eastern Arab world (by 1517).

-- capture of Cairo and last of the Abbasid caliphs; taken to Istanbul and "transfers" the title to Ottomans

- Peak of Ottoman power:  Suleyman the Magnificent (1520-1566).  Captured southeastern Europe up to Vienna ; extended control into Arabia and Yemen , and into North Africa to Algeria .

2) Political and Military Organization

-social organization as that described in previous lecture.  Like other Islamic states, not too intrusive at the local level -- as long as order was maintained and taxes paid.  This is particularly true in the Arab territories, which were relatively neglected by the Ottomans (not as wealthy as Anatolia and south-east Europe ; more expensive to administer at a distance).  But a few interesting innovations  

a) staffing high military and bureaucratic positions through devshirme:  young men taken largely from Christian areas of the empire, brought to capital, converted to Islam and trained for service of the state.  Formally slaves of the sultan, but not in the way we would thing of slaves -- known as the Janissaries.  (Other military arm -- sipahi cavalry -- more along old system of land grants for military service.)  Privileged elite, but that had no independent power base (like feudal aristocracy of Europe -- land issue).  State that was highly autonomous of its society.

b) millet system:  organization of non-Muslim populations of the Empire into autonomous sectarian communities.

3) Economy

-importance of the region to long-distance trade gave it much of its wealth (trade routes from the east to the west).

-central role of minorities in the Ottoman merchant communities -- particularly Greeks, Armenians, Syrian Christians.  Dissociation between the economic base of political power (land) and capital formation (trade). 

-Barriers to capitalist industrial development in this sectarian split; in the military-bureaucratic track of the political elite; in the relatively hands-off policy of the Ottoman government to economic issues up into the 19th century; in the openness of the Ottoman authorities to trade (giving newly industrialized Europe an entry into the economy -- Capitulations).

4) Ottomans and the World

-Ottoman military and political power at its height under Suleyman, but begins to decline from there.  Fairly early on Ottoman governors of North Africa set up quasi-independent states in Algeria and Tunisia (the dey and the bey), and it is hard at that distance for the Ottomans to keep them in line.

-More importantly, the Ottomans begin to lose the edge in military technology.  Their innovative use of gunpowder begins to be copied by European powers.  Ottoman military tactics, based on cavalry and small professional infantry, begin to be superseeded by mass-based European armies.

-One of the important economic bases of the Ottoman state was control of the east-west trade routes.  But European states begin to break that monopoly in the 1500's, with the Portuguese trade routes around Africa .  In 1600's you find Portuguese trading outposts in Muslim territories; Dutch and English East India Companies formed.

-In 1689, Ottoman forces once again lay seige to Vienna , but once again fail to conquer the city.  From that point on the Ottomans are on the defensive militarily, being pushed back in southeastern Europe and the Black Sea area by Austrians and the Russians.

-For the Arab world, the key date is 1798:  that is the year of the French invasion of Egypt .  The first time a European power penetrates militarily into the heartland of the Ottoman Empire , and of the Arab world.  Napoleon doesn't stay long (he has other things to do); and the British help to get the French out of there.  But the Ottoman governor who restores order to Egypt , a fellow named Muhammad Ali, sets up his own independent state in Egypt .  He builds an army and eventually attempts to take over the sultanate in Istanbul itself.  He is blocked by the European powers, who restrict his rule to Egypt but acknowledge his virtual independence.

-The French invasion of Egypt begins a century of European intrusion into the Arab world:

a) 1830 -- French military occupation of Algeria

b) 1839 -- British occupation of Aden

c) 1840 -- British naval and ground forces push Muhammad Ali out of Greater Syria

d) 1860 -- French troops in Lebanon after local riots take on a sectarian (Muslim v. Christian) tone.  French withdraw, but the Great Powers play a role in the special Ottoman administration of Mt. Lebanon .

e) 1881 -- French occupation of Tunisia

f) 1882 -- British occupation of Egypt

g) by 1900 -- British protectorate treaties with Gulf states

h) 1911 -- Italian conquest of Libya

i) 1912 -- French protectorate in Morocco (not part of Ottoman Empire )

III.  Safavid Empire

-Turkic military order/sufi brotherhood basis.  Like the Ottomans, based in Anatolia and emerges from the destruction of the Mongol invasions.  First Shah Isma'il proclaims himself in Tabriz in 1501.

-Soon establishes control over what we know of as Iran today (and other territories -- southern Iraq , Caucasus )

-Points about Safavids:  1) Shi'ism as state religion (conversion, built a formal ^culama structure with ^culama imported from Lebanon); 2) social structure much like the Ottomans -- Janissary army (ghulam) with gunpowder technology, but allowed to decline in relatively peaceful 1600's; 3) competition with Ottomans.

-Dynasty collapses in 1722, extreme decentralization under the succeeding Qajar dynasty (established in 1794).

IV.  The Muslim Response to the European Challenge

1.  start with idea of similar military/political challenges of the West in Ottoman Empire , Egypt and Iran , but different kinds of results because of domestic factors in each and because of Great Power interests and reactions:

Challenge >  military reform  >  political reform  >  financial crisis > political upheaval >  greater European control

a) Ottoman's spared direct occupation by European balance of power, but confronted harder issue of principle of imperial unity (Islamic, Ottoman, Turkish?)

b) Egypt directly occupied because of European power politics, but European power deals with it as a unit and does some things for economic development/state administration

c) Iran least challenged by Europeans because of location (at least at first), least able to institute reform domestically -- weakness of Qajars, tribal and ^culama strength.  European intervention contributes to greater chaos -- two parties, regional interests of each, no interest in building the state itself.

2. All began with the realization by local governments that they had to develop new types of militaries to counter the Western challenge. A "modern" military became synonomous with a "Western-style" military -- organization, tactics, uniforms.  Military colleges to study the European way of war.  European military advisers.

--this switch was not peaceful.  The military elites of the old order had to be done away with.  In the Ottoman Empire military reform was a very crucial issue.  Sultan Selim III tried to reform the Janissaries -- the infantry force of the Ottoman Empire -- and was assassinated for his troubles.  His successor Mahmud II finally broke the power of the Janissaries in 1826 by massacring them.  Muhammad Ali massacred the mamlukes in Cairo to consolidate his control in 1811

--but military reform was expensive (raising new armies, new technology).  It required the state to extract more resources out of society than had been the case in the past.  Muhammad Ali in effect reasserted central government control over all the agricultural land in Egypt , turning the whole country into his own estates.  He controlled the marketing of Egyptian agricultural products, and thus reaped their revenues to his state.  Mahmud II tried to reassert Ottoman control over the provinces, bringing state lands that had basically been taken over by local officials back under the government's control and reasserting the power of the center to tax -- civil service in the provinces, new schools, new secular courts.  From 1790's to 1900 Ottoman bureaucracy grew from around 2,000 to 35,000, and people of the time complained about "big government. 

--revenue demands also lead to borrowing from European banks.  By 1880's Ottoman, Egyptian and Tunisian governments are in default on the their loans and European powers had in effect taken over their finances. 


                        3.    Thus military reform entailed the strengthening of the central government -- to extract money and manpower from society.  Once again, Europe, where state power had grown enormously in the previous century, was seen as a model:  a) Administratively in terms of military, bureaucratic and educational models; b) technologically in terms of using modern innovations to increase state power and control (military technology; transportation and communication technology -- roads, railroads, Suez canal, telegraph); c) economically in terms of private property codes (in Ottoman Empire in 1858; in Egypt in 1850's and 1860's) and the linking of these areas to the European economy through trade and finance; d) legally with the establishment of European law codes alongside the shari^ca legal system (mixed courts in Egypt under Ismail; Ottoman civil code of 1876).

                        4.  Iran:  don't get same pattern of Westernization, at least to same extent, in Qajar Iran -- state remains fairly weak, relies upon balance of power politics to maintain itself rather than building own resources (eg. Nasr al-Din Shah comes to power in 1848 with, in effect, no standing army; and left power with only the Cossack Brigade; prominence of local and tribal notables in regional administration and the practice of tax farming).

a)        religious establishment builds a much more independent social and political role for itself with weakening of central authority

                                                 b)        European economic penetration (concessions) -- Reuter concession of 1872, tobacco concession of 1890, D'Arcy oil concession of 1901, lowering of tariff rates under European pressure (political and economic, from loans).  But not nearly as extensive as Ottoman Empire or Egypt ( Britain and Russia checking each other off, to some extent -- Reuter concession cancelled under Russian pressure)

c)         Tobacco Boycott of 1891:  led by ^culama, not by secular nationalists

d)       Failure of the balance policy:  1907 Anglo-Russian agreement on spheres of influence

e)        Constitutional Revolution of 1905-06, Qajar restoration of 1908, tribal restoration of constitution in 1909.  After that majlis split between Westernizing reformers and bazaari-^culama coalition; tribal authority in countryside, chaotic internal situation.  Brits land troops in south in 1911, Russians occupy parts of the north, force suspension of majlis in same year.

                             5.  Some also came to see Europe as a political model:  need for constitutions, legislatures, ideas of equal citizenship (rather than the millet system), nationalism as a political program.

a) Young Ottomans with citizenship decree of 1856; constitution of 1876 aimed at limiting power of the Sultan (constitutional monarchy).

b) Young Turks at the turn of the century asserting a Turkish identity for the state, calling forth beginnings of thinking about an Arab identity in eastern Arab world under Ottoman control (though very weak right through World War I).

c) Khedive Ismail setting up an assembly in 1860's; Egyptian nationalist movement grows up under British occupation from 1882.

d) Tunisian constitution granted by the Bey in 1860.

e) Iranian nationalists and constitutionalists in 1905-06

                6.  But the European challenge also was met by explicitly Islamic response, in terms of political identity.

                                                 a) Abd al-Hamid (1876-1909) in Ottoman Empire :  Islamic themes (unity of Turks and Arabs; revival of title of Caliph; symbolic things like Hijaz railroad), but continued state centralization

                                                  b) outlying provinces see Islamic political movements emerge, to some extent in reaction to European incursions -- Sanusiyya in Libya , Mahdist movement in Sudan .  Also see the Wahhabiyya in Arabia , but earlier (1700's and less in reaction to Europe ).  But put down or too peripheral to have a major political impact.

                                                 c) intellectual movement of the salafiyya -- Islamic authenticity with Western technology and social organization.  Centered very much in Egypt , where the British were a daily reminder of both the strengths of the West and of the threat of the West.  

                                                d) role of the 'ulama in Iran :  Tobacco Boycott of 1891, Constitutional Revolution and new constitution

BOTTOM LINE OF THE LEGACY OF THE PAST

1)      beginning of state centralization and increased power and role of the state in society, but relatively recent  role in this -- basically from 19^th century

                         2) the millet system hang-over, strengthening identities other than that of loyalty to the state

                         3) identity questions raised in how to respond to the European assault:  Islamic, Arab nationalist, local nationalist?  Lack of consensus over what basic identity markers mean for politics.

4) a political economy in which the state has a claim to play the dominant role (state intervention to meet European challenge/only recent codification of private property norms); in which minorities play major financial and industrial roles; and that is tied into the European system in a dependent way -- exchange of primary products (agricultural, mineral) for manufactured goods, dependence on foreign capital for development