The Ottoman Empire and the World Around It

Table of contents

List of illustrations / ix
A note on transliteration and dates / x
Acknowledgements / xi
Map of the Ottoman Empire in Asia and Africa / xiii
Map of the Ottoman Empire in Europe / xiv

1 ~ Introduction / 1

Islamic law and sultanic pragmatism: 2 ~ Determining the parameters of Ottoman ‘foreign policy’: some general considerations: 4 ~ A few ground rules of Ottoman ‘foreign politics’: 6 ~ Validity and limits of the ‘warfare state’ model: 8 ~ Accommodation, both open and unacknowledged, and the problem of structural similarities in the early modern world: 10 ~ An impossible balance between ‘east’ and ‘west’?: 11 ~ Who, in which period, formed part of the Ottoman elite?: 13 ~ The Ottoman Empire as a world economy: 14 ~ The abiding centrality of Istanbul: 16 ~ Confronting our limits: problems of documentation: 18 ~ ‘Placing’ our topic in geographical terms: 20 ~ ‘Placing’ our topic in time: 21 ~ Confronting different perspectives, or how to justify comparisons: 23 ~ A common world: 25

2 ~ On sovereignty and subjects: expanding and safeguarding the Empire 27

‘Foreign interference’ and its limits: 28 ~ A sequence of ‘mental images’: 30 ~ The 1560s/967–77: 32 ~ Introducing the major ‘players’ of the 1560s/ 967–77: the Habsburg possessions, France, Venice and Iran: 32 ~ Religious rivalries of the 1560s/967–77: 34 ~ The mid-sixteenth century: foreign subjects present on Ottoman territory – and those who were conspicuously absent: 37 ~ Religious-cum-political rivalries between the sultans and ‘western’ rulers in the 1560s/967–77: 41 ~ How the Ottoman elite did not organize its relations with the outside world in the 1560s/967–77: 43 ~ Limits of imperial reach in the 1560s/967–77: Anatolian loyalties to non-Ottoman princes: 44 ~ Limits of imperial reach: some Rumelian examples: 46 ~ Limits of imperial reach in the 1560s/967–77, a further example: Yemen as a frontier province: 47 ~ The Empire in 1639/1048–9: 49 ~ Protecting Ottoman territories in 1639/1048–9: the eastern frontier: 49 ~ The northern regions as a trouble spot in 1639/1048–9: 50 ~ Expanding Ottoman territory in 1639/ 1048–9: relations with Venice and the imminent conquest of Crete: 51 ~ Potential threats to Ottoman control over the western part of the Balkan peninsula in 1639/1048–9: 52 ~ Early links to the seventeenth-century European world economy?: 53 ~ Before  718/1130–1: 55 ~ Wars on all fronts: 55 ~ ‘The Empire strikes back’: toward a reprise en main before 1718/1130–1: 58 ~ xtraterritorialities before 1718/1130–1: 60 ~ Conquest and trade as sources of regional instabilities before 1718/1130–1: 62 ~ War-induced regional instabilities before 1718/1130–1: Serbs on both sides of the frontier: 64 ~ 1774/1187–8: 67 ~ The Russo-Ottoman war of 1768–74/ 1181–8: 67 ~ Provincial power magnates and international relations in 1774/1187–8: 69 ~ Eighteenth-century prosperity and crisis in the ‘economic’ field: 70 ~ The desert borders in 1774/1187–8: 72 ~ In conclusion: the Ottoman rulers within a set of alliances: 73

3 ~ On the margins of empire: clients and dependants 75

The royal road to empire-building: from ‘dependent principality’ to ‘centrally governed province’: 75 ~ ‘Dependent principalities’ with long life-spans: 77 ~ Ottoman methods of conquest and local realities: 78 ~ Old and new local powers in ‘centrally governed provinces’: 80 ~ Semi-autonomous provinces controlled by military corps and ‘political households’: 82 ~ The case of the Hijaz: 84 ~ Subsidising a reticent dependant: the sherifs as autonomous princes on the desert frontier: 84 ~ The sherifs, the Bedouins and the security of the pilgrimage caravan: 87 ~ The sherifs in the international arena: 88 ~ The case of Dubrovnik: linking Ottoman sultans to the Catholic Mediterranean: 89 ~ ‘Cruel times in Moldavia’: 91 ~ In conclusion: 95 ~

4 ~ The strengths and weaknesses of Ottoman warfare 98

Ottoman military preparedness and booty-making: assessing their significance and limits: 98 ~ Ottoman political advantages in early modern wars: 102 ~ Financing wars and procuring supplies: the changing weight of tax assignments and cash disbursals: 104 ~ How to make war without footing the bill – at least in the short run: 108 ~ Logistics: cases of gunpowder: 110 ~ Societies of frontiersmen: 112 ~ Legitimacy through victory, delegitimization through wars on the sultan’s territories: 114 ~ In conclusion: Ottoman society organized to keep up with the military reformation: 116 ~

5 ~ Of prisoners, slaves and the charity of strangers 119

Prisoners in the shadows: 119 ~ Captured: how ordinary people paid the price of inter-empire conflict and attempts at state formation: 121 ~ From captive to slave: 124 ~ The miseries of transportation: 126 ~ On galleys and in arsenals: 127 ~ Charity and the tribulations of prisoners: 129 ~ The ‘extracurricular’ labours of galley – and other – slaves: 131 ~ Domestic service: 132 ~ The role of local mediation in ransoming a Christian prisoner: 134 ~ In conclusion: 135

6 ~ Trade and foreigners 137

Merchants from remote countries: the Asian world: 138 ~ Merchants from a (not so) remote Christian country: the Venetians: 140 ~ Polish traders and gentlemanly visitors: 142 ~ Merchants from the lands of a (doubtful) ally: France: 144 ~ Subjects of His/Her Majesty, the king/queen of England: 148 ~ Links to the capital of the seventeenth-century world economy: the Dutch case: 150 ~ How Ottoman merchants coped with foreigners and foreign trade: 151 ~ Revisiting an old debate: ‘established’ and ‘new’ commercial actors: 154 ~ The Ottoman ruling group and its attitudes to foreign trade: 155 ~

7 ~ Relating to pilgrims and offering mediation 161

The problems of Iranian pilgrims in Iraq and the Hijaz: 162 ~ Jewish visitors to Jerusalem: 164 ~ Christian visitors writing about Palestine and the Sinai peninsula: 165 ~ Ottoman people and places in western accounts of Jerusalem: 167 ~ The Christian pilgrimage to Jerusalem in Muslim eyes: 169 ~ Catholic missionaries in Ottoman lands: 171 ~ Mediations, ambiguities and shifts of identity: 174 ~ An eighteenth-century Istanbul xenophobe: 176 ~ Was friendship between an Ottoman Muslim and a non-Muslim foreigner an impossible proposition?: 177 ~

8 ~ Sources of information on the outside world 179

The knowledge of the ambassadors: some general considerations: 181 ~ Fleeting encounters: a sea captain and diplomat in sixteenth-century India: 183 ~ The knowledge of the envoys: representing Ottoman dignity in Iran: 185 ~ Lying abroad for the good of one’s sovereign: obscuring Ottoman intentions in early eighteenth-century Iran: 186 ~ Reporting on European embassies: 187 ~ Old opponents, new allies: 191 ~ In the empire of the tsars: 192 ~ Difficult beginnings: a new type of information-gathering: 193 ~ Framing the world according to Ottoman geographers: 194 ~ Taking
notice of the Americas: 197 ~ Kâtib Çelebi and his circle: 199 ~ Non-Muslim Ottoman subjects and their travel writing: 200 ~ Tracking down the knowledge of the educated Muslim townsman: 203 : Evliya Çelebi’s stories about Europe: 204 ~ Holland and the way thither: 204 ~ European frontiers: a quantité négligeable?: 206 ~ And what about Evliya’s intentions in writing?: 207 ~ In conclusion: 208 ~

9 ~ Conclusion 211

A common world: 211 ~ The integration of foreigners: 212 ~ Imperial cohesion, ‘corruption’ and the liberties of foreigners: 213 ~ Coping with the European world economy: 214 ~ Ottoman rule: between the centre and the margins: 215 ~ Providing information: what ‘respectable people’ might or might not write about: 216 ~ Embassy reports: much maligned but a sign of changing mentalities: 217 ~

Bibliography 220

Notes 263

Index 283

~ List of illustrations

1. Helmet and armour intended as a diplomatic present from the Habsburg Emperor Rudolf II to the Grand Vizier Sinan Paşa. / 39
2. View from Semlin towards Belgrade, with the Ottoman fortress beyond the Danube, early nineteenth century / 66
3. A janissary and his European captive, 1669 / 124
4. The naval arsenal at Kasımpaşa, Istanbul, after 1784 and before 1800 / 128
5. The Damascus gate in the walls of Jerusalem / 169
6. The parade by which Ahmed Resmi entered Berlin in 1763 / 189
7. Secretary of the Ottoman embassy to Berlin, carrying the sultan’s letter (after 1763) / 190
8. A visit of the Ottoman ambassador Mehmed efendi, accompanied by his son Hüseyin, at the court of King Augustus of Poland in 1731 / 218