The Nature of the Early Ottoman StateDrawing on surviving documents from the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, The Nature of the Early Ottoman State provides a revisionist approach to the study of the formative years of the Ottoman Empire. Challenging the predominant view that a desire to spread Islam accounted for Ottoman success during the fourteenth-century advance into Southeastern Europe, Lowry argues that the primary motivation was a desire for booty and slaves. The early Ottomans were a plundering confederacy, open to anyone (Muslim or Christian) who could meaningfully contribute to this goal. It was this lack of a strict religious orthodoxy, and a willingness to preserve local customs and practices, that allowed the Ottomans to gain and maintain support. Later accounts were written to buttress what had become the self-image of the dynasty following its incorporation of the heartland of the Islamic world in the sixteenth century. |
Contents
| 1 | |
1 The Debate to Date | 5 |
His Utilization of Ahmedis Iskendername | 15 |
His Utilization of the 1337 Bursa Inscription | 33 |
4 What Could the Terms Gaza and Gazi Have Meant to the Early Ottomans? | 45 |
5 Toward a New Explanation | 55 |
6 Christian Peasant Life in the FifteenthCentury Ottoman Empire | 95 |
7 The Last Phase of Ottoman SyncretismThe Subsumption of Members of the ByzantoBalkan Aristocracy into the Ottoman Ruling Elite | 115 |
APPENDIX 1 | 145 |
APPENDIX 2 | 147 |
APPENDIX 3 | 153 |
APPENDIX 4 | 155 |
Notes | 159 |
| 177 | |
| 191 | |
SUNY Series in the Social and Economic History of the Middle East | 199 |
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Common terms and phrases
1337 Bursa inscription 1337 inscription Ahmedi Ahmedi’s History akçe akıncıs al-ghuzat Allah Anatolia Arab Asıkpasazade Balkans Bayezid Bayezid II Bithynian booty Bursa Byzantine Christian peasant conquest couplets devsirme document Doukas earlier Emir es-sultan eunuch extant fact families father fifteenth century fifteenth-century Ottoman fourteenth century gaza Gazi Evrenos Gazi Thesis Ghazi Grand Vezir Greek Hacı Hadım Halil ˙nalcık Hatun Hersekzade Ahmed Pasa Ibid Ibn Battuta infidels intended patron Island of Limnos Janissary Kadı kanunname kitabe Köse Mihal Limnos Lowry Mahmud Pasa Mehmed Mehmed II Mesih Pasa mosque Murad Murad II Muslim nobility opening decades Orhan origins Osman Osmanlı Ottoman chronicle Ottoman dynasty Ottoman Empire Ottoman history Ottoman polity period Prince Süleyman reign religion religious ruling elite Sahid bi-zalike scholars Seljuk sixteenth Sılay slaves sources Spandugnino state’s Süleyman Pasa Sultan tahrir teenth century timariots timars Trabzon Turkish Turks Uzunçarsılı vakfiye Wittek ˙smail ˙stanbul ˙znik