In the 1950s, a singing group known as the Four Lads had a popular song written by Jimmy Kennedy and Matt Simon. The song reappeared years later in the film They Might Be Giants. It’s a clever lyric and one that should persuade people with even a modicum of interest in history to probe a little deeper. It’s about changing the name from Istanbul to Constantinople. Here is an excerpt.
Why they changed it I can’t say
People just liked it better that way
Why did Constantinople get the works?
That’s nobody’s business but the Turks.
It may have been nobody’s business but the Turks in the 1950s, but today, given the turmoil in the Middle East and the resurgence of militant Islam, it should be everyone’s interest in the West.
There is a conceit, especially in the West, that nothing of value emerged from any other culture or civilization before the modern era. Any student of even high school history should know better. The ancient Turks made significant contributions in their arts and especially textiles. Turkish rugs today, as for many centuries before, are highly valued as works of art, as well as practical floor coverings.
Sir John Glubb’s pattern states that the average age of an empire is about 250 years. The Ottoman state existed for approximately 600 years. Like the Byzantines (whose empire lasted for 1,000 years), the Ottomans were an empire, as we think of an empire, for only a portion of their existence. In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, the Ottoman Empire was one of the most powerful forces, if not the most powerful, on earth. From the seventeenth century until its final dissolution in 1922, the empire shrank because of defeat in war by external enemies and rebellion within. It’s an all-too-familiar pattern, as we have repeatedly seen.
THE AGE OF PIONEERS
The Ottomans began as soldiers fighting for Islam against the Byzantine Empire. After centuries of war against the Byzantines, Mongols, and others, a prince known as Osman ruled over a small patch of territory in northwestern Anatolia. The year was 1293. It is here that we will date the start of the Ottoman Empire. From 1293 onward, Osman and his successors rapidly expanded their territory. The disastrous Fourth Crusade had permanently crippled the Byzantine Empire, and the Ottomans took full advantage. They moved to conquer land along the Bosporus Straits. Success in warfare is bound to attract additional support, and the Ottomans found that as they gained victories against the Byzantines and moved past Constantinople (which was still too strong a fortress) and into Europe, they attracted many thousands of supporters from displaced Turkmen. It proved the cliche that nothing succeeds like success. People enjoy being on the side of winners, and the Ottomans knew how to win.
One of the primary leaders in these early years was Murad I. He wisely decided to retain vassals in European territories rather than replace them (a lesson American president George W. Bush failed to learn when American forces displaced Saddam Hussein’s party members en masse, creating a leadership vacuum and instability in Iraq). Europeans could keep their territories if they submitted to the Ottoman leader, paid tribute, and provided troops for his army. This has always been a pattern within Islam. Infidels could remain in land conquered by Muslims, but only at a price. In return, the Muslims did not impose occupation forces or administrative bureaucracies on their new subjects. This is not unlike the Persian Empire, discussed earlier.
Despite some setbacks in Anatolia, the Ottomans were in a strong position when a young man named Mehmed II ascended to the throne. Blessed with a powerful state and skilled advisers, he would more than earn his future moniker, the Conqueror.
THE AGE OF CONQUESTS
In 1453, Mehmed II took the city of Constantinople after a two-month siege. The outcome was never in doubt, and the attack had been inevitable. It was impossible for the Ottomans to leave in someone else’s hands a city that was important both strategically and culturally. The city was renamed Istanbul, the Hagia Sophia was converted into a mosque, and Mehmed II became the most famous Muslim ruler in the world. Mehmed II would spend most of his time expanding Ottoman territory into Europe and Anatolia. One of his more memorable opponents was the delightfully named Vlad Dracula, prince of Wallachia. In this conflict, Vlad Dracula became a legend after impaling tens of thousands of Turks and leading a night attack on Mehmed II’s army in an attempt to kill or capture the sultan. Mehmed II achieved success in the Mediterranean Sea as well, laying the groundwork for the capture of Rhodes and establishing the Ottomans as a great naval power.
At its zenith, the Ottoman Empire dominated most of southeastern Europe, approaching Vienna, Austria. It included present-day Hungary, the Balkan region, Greece, parts of Ukraine, and portions of the Middle East. It also encompassed North Africa, as far west as Algeria, and large portions of the Arabian Peninsula.
THE AGE OF DECADENCE
While the Ottoman Empire at its pinnacle was the superpower of Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa and maintained the infrastructure and educational system necessary to preserve that status, the center of intellectual inquiry and economic activity was beginning to shift rapidly to Western Europe. For a time, there was a shared benefit in all of their economic, intellectual, and cultural achievements. However, the Ottomans would eventually be eclipsed by the Renaissance and the Enlightenment.
After his numerous conquests and with the Ottoman Empire at its peak, Suleyman I retreated from public life to enjoy his harem. The sultan left day-to-day policy and even foreign policy in the hands of his grand vizier. This office was afforded power second only to the sultan, and obedience was expected and given to the vizier. This pattern was certainly followed by Suleyman’s successors, and the harems and lust of the Ottoman sultans became legendary. If one travels to Istanbul today, one can see the palace that housed only members of the harem. If you start typing “Ottoman sultan” into Google and scroll down, on the list is “Ottoman sultan harem.” It does not take a PhD in social science to know that such lasciviousness will not have a good impact upon the quality of leadership. Decadence has more than one father, but the lust of the flesh is not an uncommon contributor to any empire’s decline.
CAMEO: Suleyman (1494–1566)
Suleyman (1494–1566) was called magnificent as part of his title, and so he was in his person.
Muslims and Europeans regarded him as the world’s most significant ruler, which was no mean feat, given the religious and cultural differences between those peoples. Suleyman, like other Muslim leaders who preceded and followed him, used the military to expand his empire in both easterly and westerly directions. At one time, his expansionist goals threatened to reach the heart of Europe.
Unlike much of the modern Muslim world, Suleyman was behind many cultural and architectural projects. In the mid-sixteenth century, Istanbul was known as the most architecturally energetic and innovative city in the world.
When it comes to good poetry, most people would not cite Islam as on a level with the world’s best-known poets, but the poetic writings of Suleyman are considered by those with knowledge of the field to be the best Islam has produced.
Suleyman was a visionary, sponsoring artists, religious thinkers, and philosophers who rivaled the most educated courts with similar artistic and intellectual interests in Europe.
He enjoyed several other monikers which fit his accomplishments. These included the Just, the Lawgiver, the Conqueror, and the Builder. Historian Suzan Yalman of Koc University in Istanbul writes, “Under Süleyman . . . the Ottoman empire reached the apogee of its military and political power. Süleyman’s armies conquered Hungary, over which the Ottomans maintained control for over 150 years, and they advanced as far west as Vienna.”1
There is great debate in modern Turkey as to just how magnificent Suleyman actually was. As the Economist has noted, “No matter that he had his own son murdered, among several dastardly deeds. Modern Turks like to boast of his armies reaching the gates of Vienna and to refer to him as the ‘lawgiver.’ A British historian, Jason Goodwin, writes that Suleyman was ‘majestic enough to stock his court with an unusual number of buffoons, dwarves, mutes, astrologers, and silent janissaries’ and that he ruled so long ‘that he became something of an Ottoman Queen Victoria.’”2
Suleyman’s remains were discovered in 2015 in Hungary, according to a Hungarian historian.3
America, are you paying attention?
The end of the reign of Suleyman I occurred at the end of the sixteenth century. This time period saw a significant shift in the defense establishment of the Ottoman Empire. For most of Ottoman history, as in many cultures, the cavalry was the most important component of the army. As such, the men who formed the heavy cavalry (the nobility) were afforded a large amount of political power. Now, partly because of technological changes and partly because of political realities, that role moved to the janissaries (gun-carrying soldiers) and the rest of the troops associated with the devshirme system, and they assumed dominance.
The devshirme system would be odious to modern people, but in the history of Islam, it was thought to be an important part of their religion. Under devshirme, Christian boys were taken from their families as a tax and educated to serve as bureaucrats and soldiers. These boys were often forcibly converted to Islam and became slaves of the state. As a result of the dominance of the janissaries in the Ottoman army by the end of the sixteenth century, the janissaries became a state within a state. Positions that were once based on merit became subject to corruption and nepotism, contributing to the decline of Ottoman governance.4
This political and governmental infighting prevented the Ottomans from adapting to a rapidly changing world. Europeans were taking to the seas to explore the known and especially the unknown world. They were able to bypass old land trade routes to the East that traversed Ottoman territories. Instead they made use of faster and cheaper sea-based trade routes. Without that rich trade, the Ottoman Empire’s economy began to suffer. The economic center of power in Europe was moving from what was at one point the Eastern Roman Empire to the new rising global powers of Spain, France, Britain, and the Netherlands. Economic stagnation and the inability to pay the government apparatus led to social unrest. Rebellion, riots, food shortages, and a lack of basic social cohesion were the predictable and inevitable results. A lack of food is bound to cause turmoil. Consider modern-day Venezuela, where it is increasingly difficult to find basic necessities like food and medicine, even toilet paper. A once-rich nation, Venezuela has squandered its assets on a failed political philosophy.
While the army was able to suppress unrest in almost all instances, from the seventeenth century onward, Ottoman military strength began to collapse, weakening in relation to that of the West. This collapse did not occur all at once. Even after the great Christian victory at Lepanto in 1571, the Ottoman navy was rebuilt within two years. However, it became increasingly difficult for the Ottomans to absorb such losses.
Constant warfare with the Habsburg Dynasty, particularly the Austrian branch, took its toll. The turning point in this several-centuries-long struggle was the Siege of Vienna in 1683. Many books and other works have been written on this battle. An Ottoman army numbering in the hundreds of thousands lay siege to the city. A Christian coalition led by the Polish warrior-king John III Sobieski and numbering fewer than ninety thousand broke the siege and routed the Ottoman army. The Christian counterattack involved what very well may be the largest recorded cavalry charge in Western military history. Eighteen thousand Christian cavalry charged downhill into the Ottoman lines. Think of the charge of the Riders of Rohan before the walls of Minas Tirith in part three of the Lord of the Rings, The Return of the King.
By the time the nineteenth century arrived, no Western state any longer feared the Ottomans. Their territories were picked off by stronger nations. This earned the Ottoman Empire the name “sick man of Europe.” But the empire tried to hold on to what remained, although at this time it could claim control over only a more limited amount of land, which is now called Turkey. The First World War would see the final extinguishing of the Ottoman Empire, and the territory that was not taken by the Allies officially became known as the Republic of Turkey, although now it is less of a republic under President Erdoğan and is increasingly displaying characteristics associated with a dictatorship.
During most of the empire’s existence, the official religion was Islam. As the Turks expanded their territory and the influence of Islam into what today is the Middle East, this expansion resulted in what came to be known as the Crusades. There were eight in all, and modern secularists enjoy criticizing Christians for them when Christians warn of the threat of radical Islam, as if to state a moral or religiously motivated equivalency. While the Crusades are admittedly viewed as a scar on the face of the church, most historians agree that the threat of Muslim expansion was real and merited a response, especially given the church’s desire to reclaim the Holy Land from Muslim control.5
Perhaps, at least in part, because of religious conflict, the Turkish constitution was amended in 1924. The amendment removed the provision declaring that the “religion of the state is Islam.” The main leader responsible for turning Turkey away from a theocracy to a more democratic and secular nation was the country’s first president, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk. His influence continued long after his death in 1938, but his vision is being replaced, in a throwback to ancient times, by Turkey’s current president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who was first elected in 2014 and who survived a coup attempt and a subsequent reelection that some believed was tainted by questionable vote counting. After that election, Erdoğan acted unilaterally to expand his powers.
While Atatürk inaugurated a secular government, he allowed what Americans might call the free expression of religion. Whether you were a Muslim, a Christian, a Jew, or an atheist, you stood as an equal before the government. That is rapidly changing in our day, as militant Islam under Erdoğan is again rearing its head, and religious pluralism is losing its appeal.
THE DECLINE
When it comes to success, getting there is often easier than staying there.
Empires require energy, money, and sacrifice to create, and it takes those same elements in greater abundance to maintain them. In the case of the Ottoman Empire, creeping fatigue began in the late sixteenth century.
Corruption and nepotism, economic difficulties and social unrest, a weakened central government and military defeats were multiple factors contributing to the decline of the Ottoman Empire. In these, the Turks were little different from empires before or after them. They learned little from history and so were doomed to repeat it.
WHAT CAN WE LEARN FROM THE OTTOMANS?
Despite its decline, a battle continues for the soul of this once-great empire turned run-of-the mill nation. According to a story in the January 2, 2018, issue of the Irish Times, an increasing number of Turks want the Hagia Sophia—this mosque-turned-church-turned-museum—to revert to a mosque.6 Thousands of worshipers have turned up outside the ornate building each May in recent years to observe the Muslim conquest of the city and to rally for the building to be converted once again. Muslims don’t forget, believing that any territory or building that was once Muslim remains Muslim no matter what has happened to it in the interim.
Since the AK Party, a party that leans toward a more fundamentalist view of Islam, came to power in 2003, the secular national identity has eroded, and a worldview that reflects an Islamic outlook is gaining strength.
One downside of converting the Hagia Sophia into a mosque is the likely loss of tourism. Millions of tourists visit the Hagia Sophia each year, bringing with them tens of millions of dollars that contribute to the Turkish economy. Turning the museum into a mosque would almost certainly cause significant portions of tourist income, especially that from Western and non-Muslim tourists, to disappear, with potentially disastrous results for businesses and employment.
In addition, the museum’s centuries-old mosaics would have to be destroyed or covered up. Turkey has a Christian population of only about 160,000, so most of the calls for preserving the Hagia Sophia as a museum are coming from outside the country. As Turkey grows more Islamic, it is unlikely the government will pay much attention to outside infidels.
Zeki Sakarya, who runs a souvenir crafts store not far from the museum, is quoted in the Irish Times story: “The Hagia Sophia as a museum is better; we have enough mosques in Istanbul. It makes no sense to favor one group over another.”7
That, however, is what fundamentalist Islam does. It favors itself over all other groups, religious and secular. If the Hagia Sophia returns to its earlier status as a mosque, it will be a powerful statement, not only for Turks and Turkey but for much of the rest of the Islamic world, which takes such things as evidence they are obeying the commands of Allah.
It has become popular among Christians to ignore the very real threat of a resurgent militant Muslim movement. Part of the reason for that is an admirable effort to acknowledge that not all Muslims are terrorists and that currently the vast majority of Muslims in America are decent, law-abiding, tax-paying, productive citizens who hold values similar to our own. At the same time, however, a number of Muslims believe that the Koran teaches that their religion should dominate the world, by violent means if necessary.8
Should we be alarmed? Yes, but our reaction must be based on love, not fear, as well as confidence in God’s kingdom. As Jesus reminds us in the book of John, “Take heart! I have overcome the world” (16:33). Remember, we are citizens of that higher kingdom first, and when we live by that kingdom’s values and instructions, we can have a great influence on this temporal nation.
In fact, there are reports of Muslims converting to Christianity in large numbers in places like Afghanistan and Sudan. Erwin Lutzer, pastor of the historic Moody Church, suggests that God has brought Muslims to America for a reason, and that is for them to experience true freedom to choose what and how they believe. “If we approach them with kindness and a willingness to learn about their faith, they will also be more willing to listen to us. It is a privilege to represent Jesus Christ to those who are strangers to our Savior.”9
For some of us, that response is a tough one to swallow, especially when we read of churches being burned by Muslim militants in Africa and the massacre of Christian families. And yet Christianity has grown to become the largest religion in the world, not by might or power but by individual believers like you and me reflecting the love of Jesus to all, even to our religious and political enemies.
CAMEO: Sultan Ibrahim I (1615–1648)
One would be hard-pressed to find someone weirder, more debauched, and more responsible for the moral decline of any empire than Sultan Ibrahim I, one of the most carnal rulers in Ottoman history—and that’s saying something.
Infamous for its harem, the palace for concubines still stands in Istanbul along the Bosporus River. It is a magnificent structure, lit at night and impressive from the water. What went on inside and in the sultan’s palace (not to mention his mind) is hard to fathom, even in modern “anything goes” cultures.
Dimitrie Cantemir, a Moldavian historian and musician, wrote in his book The History of the Growth and Decay of the Othman Empire, first published in 1734, about Ibrahim I’s debauchery. He wrote on how the sultan was “exhausted with the frequent repetition of venereal delights,” how the sultan demanded a new virgin be brought to him every Friday, and how the sultan would chase the naked women of his harem around while they made noises like stallions.10
Of course, such activities dramatically limited his ability to govern his kingdom effectively. You would not expect Hugh Hefner or Charlie Sheen to run an empire; they would be too busy pursuing carnal pleasures.
Ultimately, he was strangled in his own palace in order to remove him from the throne. It was an ignominious end to a life that had an ignominious beginning, with little in between that contributed positively to the empire, much less to the sultan.