The foundation of the Ottoman Empire and the ideology of ‘Holy War’
Edward Warren
From 2330 BCE to the decline of the colonial powers the world has been dominated by empires, often with the fall of one precipitating the rise of the next. The Ottoman empire, formed in the late 13 th century is one of the longest-lasting empires in modern history. Its rapid increase in power is ostensibly quite hard to understand, as what was essentially a collection of small and unruly Turkic tribes transformed into an organized and expansive empire in only a century. The key factors that allowed for such domination in such a small period of time were threefold. Firstly, the religious backbone of Islam was deeply embedded in the Turks, and the idea of a ‘holy war’ was an easy way for the founding leaders to unify and motivate their people to fight. Secondly, the administrative competence and ideological diplomacy of the Ottoman empire ensured little resistance in the Balkans, the focus on rights for the peasantry and religious tolerance making Ottoman rule an attractive prospect for the lowest classes. Finally, the Ottomans, like many empires, needed some luck: the combination of Mongol dominance, Byzantine and Seljuk decline, and the lack of a crusade made the Ottoman conquest possible. Firstly, it can be argued that the religious motivations and cultural ideals of the time were the principal factors that allowed the initial Ottoman leaders to both establish their own rule, but also to encourage further expansion. The collection of Turcoman tribes that gathered in Anatolia in the late 13 th century were united by Islam, and a prevalent idea in Islam is that of ‘Gaza’ or holy war, whereby all those who follow Islam are commanded to expand the land of Islam and to limit any other form of heretical religion such as Christianity. 1 The initial leaders of the Ottoman tribes, such as Osman I, were aware of this and used the idea, often taught to children from a young age, to motivate their people to conquer the surrounding nations. That said, the Ottomans were consistently more diplomatic with their conquests than one might expect of a state driven by holy war. They would often offer a Christian state voluntary submission before resorting to warfare, and, in a manner that set the Ottoman empire apart from all competitors, they almost always allowed the principalities that they had conquered to maintain their culture, and this included the practice of Christians or Jews. Unlike the Christian crusaders of the time, who would brutally sack cities and alienate all its inhabitants, the Ottomans simply demanded a poll tax and the promise of obedience from Christian or Jewish areas they conquered, for example, Bulgaria, Serbia, Albania, Macedonia, and Thessaly. Therefore, they managed to improve their economic position while maintaining a strict dominance that was not centered around violence or fear, but respect, which turned out to be a far more effective tool. The Ottomans were even happy to levy vassal armies of troops that consisted largely of Christians. The Ottoman leaders understood the importance of military unity and strength, and were happy to overlook faith, in return for military insurances or protection. For example, Christian nomads in Serbia named The Vlachs were exempt from some taxes but in return they assisted the empire as frontier raiders. Without this religious toleration the unification of Muslim Anatolia and the Orthodox Christian Balkans would have been close to impossible. 2 The extent of this religious toleration makes it hard to argue that the Ottomans
1 Inalcik 1973: 17. 2 Faroqhi 2006, 48.
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