Anybody got a link to the great turningpoint battles against the Muslims

[Imran Siddiqui]

Indeed, and Zakhat can be fairly high (these days the minimum is supposed to be 10% of income, though I'm not sure if Islamic countries do that lately).

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Oerdin
poverty stricken farmers close to subsistance level will convert in order to avoid paying taxes.

#1, Christians on the European mainland were specifically prevented by law from converting to Islam. Punishment was problematic, since you couldn't punish someone for converting to Islam.

#2, Poverty stricken households paid no, or paid greatly reduced taxes for most of the peiord of the empire. In fact, in the Empire, household was a very loose concept, with many families in poor areas being thrown together in one household for tax purposes (making census data before the 19th Century rather sketchy).

3#, households in certain areas were not only exempt, but recieved payments for particular duties, such as if it was their responsibility to keep a pass open in winter or maintain a importan bridge., etc. This fell on both Christians and Muslims.

There were other benenfits to becoming a Muslim, such as being able to join the military (in the early period of the Empire, there were no religious restrictions on who could serve, but that ended sometime in the 15th or 16th Century). Only Muslims could be granted land holdings by the Sultan, who owned all land in the empire.

The Ottoman Janisaries were also Christian boys stolen from their parents as children and raised as muslims for the purpose of reducing the number of Christians and increasing the number of muslims in the Empire.

Stolen is the wrong word. Recruited is a better word. Becoming one of the kapikulu (the state bureucracy, from whose ranks the janisarries were drawn) was a one way ticket out of poverty for the child, and a great boon for the family. Frequently, families benefited greatly from having one of their sons become a slave of the sultan, and Muslims would pretend to be Christian in order to have a son selected, families would bribe the recruiters to take their sons, sons that were too young or old were passed off as the proper age, etc. The benefits were potentially enormous. One Patriarch of the Serbian Orthodox Churh was appointed by his brother, who had made it all the way up the bureaucracy to become Grand Vizier.

The number of boys taken any given year was generally very small. Even up to the 16th Century, the number of Janisaries number 25,000 in total, and many of those were born into the class (there were natrually many more kapikulu, but in an empire with millions of Christians, the number of boys taken was obviously insiginificant).

Again, as I previously mentioned, Balkan Christians had to be prevented from converting. Elsewhere, conversions happened quite rapidly. The isle of Crete, for example, become majority Muslim within twenty years of the fall of the last Venetian stronghold. Although Islam did spread quite extensively in the Balkans inspite of this, it was mainly through Turkish settlement and not conversion. After the Third retreat from Vienna, many of these Turks abandoned the North for Macedonia and Thrace, and many were killed in the sixteen years of war.

There was almost an attempt by Selim the Grim, Suleyman's father, to wipe out the Christians of Anatolia. Following the Spanish model, he planned to execute a third, expell a third, and convert a third. He was talked out of it by his advisors (always a dangerous thing) and finally distracted from the plan by an Shi'ite uprising, which led to war first with the Safavids and then with the Mamluks. Then he died.

Even earlier, during the Interregeigum, when the four sons of Beyezid the Thunderbolt, vied for the throne after their father had been carted away by Timur Lang, one of the sons, Musa, had for an advisor, Sheik Bettretin, who preached a merging of Christianity and Islam (as well as a primative form of communism--so you know I like the guy ). It proved [i]very popular in the Balkans, and even after Musa was defeated, the new sultan, Mehmet I, spent the better part of a decade putting down religious revolts by Betrettin's followers.

It spread so easily because the fronteer Turks of Anatolia practiced very heterodox forms of Islam, which blanded various amounts of Orthodox Christianity, Islam (mainly Sufi'ism) and paganism. (The Greek and Serbian fronteersman of Anatolia also practiced a folk version of Eastern Orthodoxy, making it easy for them to convert to Islam). Although Murad II, Mehmet I's son , instituted an Sunni orthodoxy to try and make all the Muslims good Sunnis, it never fully took. Murad's grandson, Beyezit II was a member of one of those Sufi sects. It was only the threat posed by the Safavid cult that finally prompted a religious crack down and to promote Sunni orthodoxy, and even today in Anatolia, there are still many hetoerdox forms of Islam.

[Dinner]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui
Indeed, and Zakhat can be fairly high (these days the minimum is supposed to be 10% of income, though I'm not sure if Islamic countries do that lately).

The Zakhat is the required tith for charity?

[Imran Siddiqui]

Originally posted by Oerdin
The Zakhat is the required tith for charity?

Yes, more or less. Though in the older days, it was basically just a tax, supposed to go to poor relief, but depending on the royal administration, who knows?

[Evil Knevil]

Originally posted by Oerdin
The Ottoman Sultan might have said there was no difference but the reality is he charged an extra tax on nonchristians. The idea was that 1) the Koran specifically says to do this and 2) poverty stricken farmers close to subsistance level will convert in order to avoid paying taxes. The Ottoman Janisaries were also Christian boys stolen from their parents as children and raised as muslims for the purpose of reducing the number of Christians and increasing the number of muslims in the Empire.

Dr. Strangeloves comments seem to be historically correct even if you don't like them.

Sorry in taking so long to reply, I've had to rewrite the message a few times, because when I first finished it it sounded breathtakingly arrogant....

I'd suggest you actually look at what Dr Strangelove and I were debating, that 1798 and Napoleon's invasion was "a psychological scar on the Islamic World".
We were talking about the Ottoman Empire (and Egypt) from the later part of the 18th century, not throughout its history.

Strangelove was arguing that this period was marked by a turn away from reforms and an increase in anti-christian and conservative reaction in the Empire. I was arguing that the opposite occurred.

Do you seriously think that I didn't know how the Jizya existed for centuries? Why do you think I mentioned that the Sultans from the 18th century onwards reduced this tax burden and tried to integrate their subjects more fully into the Empire? Similarly, discussion about the Jannisaries is completely irrelevant in this period because, as I said, they were all killed in 1827!

You should pay more attention instead of trying to rehearse your 'knowledge' about some sort of unchanging and static Ottoman Empire. In any case Che dealt with some of the points you made.

[Seeker]

"Serbian fronteersman of Anatolia"

??

[Dr Strangelove]

Originally posted by Evil Knevil


I'm sorry, but thats mostly rubbish.

(1) Westerners had always been considered dangerous. Even so, no restrictions were made on their travels. In fact, the European powers were allowed to set up schools and Universities in Syria, and were also granted (admittedly at gunpoint) concessions for trading, as well as specific legal rights 'the Capitulations'.

When were these schools set up? Was it around the time of western intervention in the Greek revolution of the Crimean War?

(2) Then why did Muhammad 'Ali in Egypt set out ambitious reform programs. Why did the Ottoman Sultan create a Nizam-i-Cedit (new order army), and then shell the Jannisaries when they opposed his reforms? ('the auspicious event'). Why did they set up a decree mandating universal primary education in 1834. Why did they seize religious property (waqf property), turning the major religious positions into state appointments and limiting religious control over higher education?

Take a closer look at history and you'll find the Nizam only lasted a few years before the revolt of the Janissaries eliminated them and the Sultan who dared to permit them.

(3) Utter, utter rubbish. The Ottoman Sultan declared in 1808 that, “I recognise no differences between my subjects”. The heads of the religious communities(called millets by Westerners, but that's actually inaccurate) were given more rights, including greater authority to collect taxes. Tax rates were normalised between subjects. Further, although the Greeks in Istanbul were increasingly badly treated, communities of Jews, Armenians and so-on were still allowed to function in the higher ranks of the bureaucracy.
There were religious riots in Syria-Lebanon, especially after the 1830's, but the impact of these has been exaggerated, not in the least because that's where a lot of American, French and British writers, teachers and journalists lived, and also expressed the greatest imperial interests. "Oh nos! The Christians are being hurt! Lets use this opportunity to intervene". The near civil war in the Kurdish regions was not reported to anywhere near as great an extent, if only because that was a political battle, not a religious one.

Finally, the French census I talked about, "l'Description D'Egypte", commissioned in 1798, reported about 30% of the population of Egypt was Christian, no where near 50%. Nor was there anywhere a policy of 'reducing' Christian or Jewish numbers. Not only is there no evidence for this, at all, but of these so-called 'closed areas', many Christians and Jews benefited from the increased trade with the European powers that was opened up by 1798, and 1774.

Thirty percent is closer to 50% than it is to the 5% it is today. Furthermore I've read accounts written by British explorers who assumed muslim costume in order to explore areas outside of the traditional pilgrimage routes allowed to westerners. When they said that they faced possible execution if discovered I suppose they meant it.

The most common reaction to European power in this period is aptly demonstrated by the Qadi of Istanbul in 1774, who, when asked to discover a religious explanation of what had just happened, wrote that:
“It is impossible to obtain from us an explanation of why things have turned out as they have".

Confusion was by far stronger than any so-called conservative reaction.

The French Revolution wasn't even a twinkle in Lafayette's eye in 1774, and Napoleon Bonaparte was a mere child.

[Last Conformist]

Originally posted by Thorgal
So, you mean historical facts relevancy depends of his fame. Then Montecasino was way more important for WW2 outcome than lets say, the battle of Prokhorovka, wasnt it?

Prokhorovka is heavily overrated.

Certainly, Tours/Poiters has also been overrated, but Covadonga simply didn't matter at all, except for the psychological impact of the legend later spun around it. A Moorish victory there had not somehow magically infused the Muslim leaders with the motivation to impose lasting control of the far north.

[Evil Knevil]

Originally posted by Dr Strangelove
When were these schools set up? Was it around the time of western intervention in the Greek revolution of the Crimean War?

In the early 19th Century. The first primary school in 'Lebanon' was founded in 1803.

Take a closer look at history and you'll find the Nizam only lasted a few years before the revolt of the Janissaries eliminated them and the Sultan who dared to permit them.

If you look closer at the history, then you'll see that after the Jannisaries crushed the Nizam, subsequent Sultans concentrated their efforts on creating a loyal and reformed army out of the artillery corps. It was this artillery corps that shelled the Janissary barracks during the Auspicious Event of 1827. Afterwards Mahmut II created another new reformed army, and this one was not eliminated.

Thirty percent is closer to 50% than it is to the 5% it is today.

Irrelevant. The point you were making is that after 1798, there was outright persecution of the Copts in Egypt. As I've argued already, they actually benefited from the process of Westernisation that was taking place in the country. Further, the % of Copts in the population did not begin to decline until the later period of British rule when the Muslim birthrate rose. The precipitous decline towards the 5-8% it is now only began after the 1952 Revolution, and the economic and socials policies that damaged Copt life.

Furthermore I've read accounts written by British explorers who assumed muslim costume in order to explore areas outside of the traditional pilgrimage routes allowed to westerners. When they said that they faced possible execution if discovered I suppose they meant it.

Execution was not a state, or even regional policy though. Westerners travelled throughout the Empire in this period. Some were killed, but in areas of the Empire where tribal disorder reigned, or in areas that benefited from the slave trade, which they thought the Europeans were trying to stop. It was not religiously motivated, like you suggest.

The French Revolution wasn't even a twinkle in Lafayette's eye in 1774, and Napoleon Bonaparte was a mere child.

?

Let me be clear on all this. I don't disagree with you that there was a major psychological shift in the Near East in the latter part of the 18th Century. I am however arguing that this was a long process, and that events such as the defeat by Russia and the retreat from Vienna played a greater a part than 1798 did.

I am also arguing that this had exactly the opposite effect that you stated. It opened up the Near East to new ideas and methods of dealing with the world, and with Western power rather than inducing xenophobia and conservatism.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Seeker
"Serbian fronteersman of Anatolia"

??

The constant warfare in Anatolia depopulated the frontier. The Roman Emperor settled thousands of Serbian soldiers and their families there to make up the difference. This would be before the Seljik sultanate of Rum was established, and well before the Ottomans were on the scene.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Evil Knevil
I am also arguing that this had exactly the opposite effect that you stated. It opened up the Near East to new ideas and methods of dealing with the world, and with Western power rather than inducing xenophobia and conservatism.

Ultimately, the continuing humiliation (with the exceptions of the Mahdi's Revolt in Sudan and the Britiash defeat in Afganistan) of the Muslim world at the hands of the British and French led to the creation of the Muslim Brotherhood, which is basically the organization which spawned all of today's terrorist groups. My understanding, however, is that MB was originally more of a Arab-nationalist group, as opposed to today's Islamicist group.

[Thorgal]

Certainly, Tours/Poiters has also been overrated, but Covadonga simply didn't matter at all, except for the psychological impact of the legend later spun around it. A Moorish victory there had not somehow magically infused the Muslim leaders with the motivation to impose lasting control of the far north.

That "psychological impact" of Covadonga managed to the union of the center-northern Spain noblemen and the genesis of the Asturian Kingdom. And in any case the Moorish had waaay more motivation to impose lasting control in Spain´s far north, a continuos menace for his power in Al-Andalus, than in the even farther north, in France, that never was of much relevance for them.