10 dark secrets of the Ottoman Empire

2023-01-12 17:14:05Histori SHKRUAR NGA REDAKSIA VOX
10 dark secrets of the Ottoman Empire

 

 

For nearly 400 years, the Ottoman Empire dominated Southeastern Europe, Turkey, Albania, and the Middle East. Founded by Turkish knights, the empire quickly lost its original vitality. The Ottoman imperial state had a strange kind of dysfunction, hiding inside all kinds of darkest secrets. From fratricide, harems, executions to Ali Pasha Tepelena, learn about the dark secrets of the Ottoman empire that was practically ruled by Albanians and Greeks.

10 – Fratricide

10 dark secrets of the Ottoman Empire

The early Ottoman sultans did not practice the principle of birthright, where the eldest son inherits everything. As a result, different brothers sometimes claimed the throne, and from its earliest days the empire was filled with pretenders who tended to seek refuge in enemy states and cause trouble for years.

When Mehmet the Conqueror besieged Constantinople, his uncle fought against him from the walls. Mehmet solved the problem with his usual cruelty.

When he took the throne, he executed most of his male relatives, including an infant brother he strangled in his cradle. He then issued the infamous law: "And whoever of my sons takes over the Sultanate, for the sake of the order of the world, will have to kill his brothers. Most of the Ulama allow this. So, let him act in this way." From this point on, each new sultan had to take the throne by killing all his male relatives.

Even after the first round of killings, the sultan's relatives were not safe. Suleiman the Magnificent watched silently from behind a window as his son was strangled with a bowstring; the boy had become very popular among the army and the sultan did not feel safe.

9 – Cage

10 dark secrets of the Ottoman Empire

The policy of fratricide in the Ottoman Empire was not popular with the public or the religious clergy, so the policy was quietly abandoned when Ahmed I died suddenly in 1617. Instead, potential heirs to the throne were locked away in Topkapi Palace in Istanbul, in apartments known as cages. A prince of the Ottoman Empire could spend his entire life imprisoned in a cage, constantly monitored by guards.

Imprisonment was usually luxurious but strictly enforced, and many princes went mad from boredom or became addicted to alcohol.

The threat of execution was constant. In 1621, the Grand Mufti refused to allow Osman II to strangle his brother. But the chief justice of the Balkans gave a dissenting opinion, and the prince drowned anyway. Osman himself was then overthrown by the army, who then had to extricate his surviving brother from the cage by removing the roof and hoisting him up with a rope. The poor fellow had been without food or water for two days and was probably too mad to notice that he had become a sultan.

8 – The palace was a silent hell

10 dark secrets of the Ottoman Empire

Even for the Sultan, life in Topkapi Palace could be stifling to the extreme. It was considered improper for the sultan to speak too much, so a form of sign language was introduced and the ruler spent most of his time surrounded by complete silence.

Intrigues in the palace were common, as viziers, courtiers, eunuchs fought for power. For 130 years, the women of the harem gained great influence, and this period became known as the "sultanate of women." The dragoman (chief of the interpreters) was always powerful and he was always Greek. Eunuchs were divided along racial lines, and the Black Chief Eunuch and the White Chief Eunuch were rivals.

Often caught in the middle of this madness, the sultan was followed wherever he went, so Ahmet III wrote to his grand vizier, complaining that: “If I go into one of the rooms, 40 people are lined up; if I have to put on my trousers I am not at all comfortable, so the sword-bearer must let them go, keep only three or four men so that I can be comfortable.'

Because they spent their days in total silence, constantly guarded, in a poisonous atmosphere, a number of Ottoman sultans became mentally ill.

7 – Executions

10 dark secrets of the Ottoman Empire

The Ottoman government held the sword of life and death over the people of the empire and was not afraid to use it. The first court of Topkapi Palace, where petitioners and visitors gathered, was a terrible place.

There stood out two pillars where the severed heads were exposed and a special spring only for the executioners to wash their hands.

The Ottomans did not even bother to create a corps of executioners. Instead, this task fell to the palace gardeners, who divided their time between killing and creating many of the beautiful flowers we know today.

Most of their victims were simply beheaded. But it was forbidden to spill the blood of the royal family and high-ranking officials, so they were drowned on the spot.

The famous vizier, Kara Mustafa, became highly respected because he greeted his executioner with a "So be it!" humble. Then she knelt down for him to place the wire around her neck.

But in later years, standards fell.

In fact, the 19th century governor, Ali Pasha Tepelena, who fought so hard against the Sultan's army, was treacherously killed by being shot from under the floor of his house. While some other variants say that he was betrayed by his people.

6 – Death race

10 dark secrets of the Ottoman Empire

In the Ottoman Empire, there was a way for a loyal official to escape the sultan's wrath. Beginning in the late 18th century, it became customary for a condemned grand vizier to escape a tragic fate by defeating a gardener in a running race through the palace gardens.

The official would be called to a meeting with the head gardener and after exchanging greetings, the vizier would be handed a glass of sherbet covered with ice. If she was white, the sultan had offered him another chance. If it was red, he would be executed. As soon as he saw the sherbet, the vizier had to start running immediately.

He ran through the palace gardens, through the shadows of the cypress trees, followed by eyes hidden behind the gates and windows of the harem. The race ended at the Fish Market Gate, on the other side of the palace. If the vizier arrived at the gate before the head gardener, he was simply sent into exile.

But the head gardener was younger and stronger, and it often happened that he cut him with his silk rope. So, very few viziers succeeded.

5 – Crowds

10 dark secrets of the Ottoman Empire

Grand viziers were executed or thrown to the mob whenever something went wrong.

Sultan Selim Grim had executed so many grand viziers that they always had a wish with them whenever they met him. Someone begged Selim to tell him if he was going to be executed. The viziers also had to calm the people of Istanbul, who gathered in the palace where the executions took place. An 18th century British visitor saw that when a minister was disliked by the people, within three hours he was dragged out and his hands, head and feet were cut off.

The mobs were not afraid to attack the palace if their demands were not met.

In 1730 a soldier named Patrona Ali led the mob to the palace and managed to take control of the empire for several months. He was stabbed to death by a butcher, to whom he had entrusted the money to Vllahia.

4 – Harem

10 dark secrets of the Ottoman Empire

Perhaps the most terrifying feature in Topkapi Palace was the Imperial Harem.

It was composed of 2,000 women, most of them bought or kidnapped as slaves, who served as the wives of the Sultan.

They were kept closed for a long time. The harem was guarded and managed by the so-called Chief Enoch the Black, who held the position of one of the most powerful offices in the empire.

Conditions in the harem varied depending on the occasion. But one of the emperors named Suleiman the Magnificent fell in love with one of the women of his harem named Rokselana and married her. He also made her a key adviser. Roxelana's influence was very great.

But it was Sultana Kosem who had a greater influence than Rokselana. But her black fate struck with her husband's daughter, who strangled her with a curtain.

3 – Exploitation of young boys

10 dark secrets of the Ottoman Empire

One of the most notorious features of early Ottoman rule was the "collection", the contribution of some young men from the Christian lands of the Empire.

Most of the boys were enrolled in the janissary corps, the slave-soldier army that was part of the Ottoman conquests.

Boys were recruited when the empire felt it needed military power and targeted boys aged 12-14 from Greece, Albania and other Balkan countries. Ottoman officials called up all the boys in the village and checked their names from the local churches. They then chose the strongest, and took one son from every 40 families. The boys were then grouped together and marched to Istanbul, the weakest ones being left for dead along the way.

The Ottomans gave a detailed description of each boy so that they could finally decide who to choose.

In Istanbul, they were forcibly converted to Islam.

The most handsome and intelligent boys were sent to the palace, where they were trained to join the imperial elite. These boys could aspire to the highest ranks, often becoming pashlars or viziers.

2 – Slavery

10 dark secrets of the Ottoman Empire

Although the collection of janissaries was closed as a process in the 17th century, slavery remained a key feature of the Ottoman system until the end of the 19th century.

Time passed and more slaves came from Africa or the Caucasus, while there was also a constant capture of slaves from Russians, Ukrainians and even Poles. Those who were not Muslims were forced to convert.

Scholar Bernard Levis argued that Islamic slavery had developed largely independently of Western slavery and therefore had a number of important differences. It was easier for Ottoman slaves to gain their freedom or reach high positions of power. So the Turks were less racist in their treatment of white and black slaves. But there is no doubt that Ottoman slavery followed a brutal system. Millions died in slave raids.

1 – Massacres

10 dark secrets of the Ottoman Empire

In general, the Ottomans were a tolerant empire. In fact, they welcomed the Jews with open arms after the latter were expelled from Spain.

They did not discriminate between different peoples in the way of power, and the empire was practically ruled by Albanians and Greeks.

But when the Ottomans themselves felt threatened, they became very mean. Selim Grim, for example, was greatly alarmed by the Shiites, who denied his authority as the protector of Islam and might be double agents of Persia. As a result he marched across the east of the empire, killing at least 40,000 Shiites and causing untold damage to their homes.

As the empire declined, it lost much of its old tolerance, becoming increasingly vicious towards minorities. In 1915, when the empire was only two years away from collapse, it orchestrated the massacre of more than 750,000 of its Armenian population.

An estimated 1.5 million people died in the Armenian Genocide, an atrocity that Turkey still refuses to fully acknowledge.

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