Ottoman Empire

The Ottoman Empire was an ugly affair, but they had the right idea. The rulers in Turkey were fortunately so corrupt that they left people alone pretty much–were mostly interested in robbing them–and they left them alone to run their own affairs, and their own regions and their own communities with a lot of local self determination. —Noam Chomsky

The Ottoman Empire (Ottoman Turkish: دولت عليه عثمانيه Devlet-i ʿAlīye-i ʿOsmānīye, lit. 'The Sublime Ottoman State'; Turkish: Osmanlı İmparatorluğu or Osmanlı Devleti) was an empire that controlled much of Southeast Europe, Western Asia, and Northern Africa between the 14th and early 20th centuries.

Quotes

• The Ottoman Empire was an ugly affair, but they had the right idea. The rulers in Turkey were fortunately so corrupt that they left people alone pretty much–were mostly interested in robbing them–and they left them alone to run their own affairs, and their own regions and their own communities with a lot of local self determination.
  • Noam Chomsky, Delivered at the First Annual Maryse Mikhail Lecture “No peace without justice; no justice without truth” The University of Toledo, March 4, 2001. [1]

• The Turkish empire was divided in spite of Britain’s promise. The Sultan was made a prisoner in Constantinople. Syria was absorbed by France. Smyrna and Thrace were swallowed by Greece, while Mesopotamia and Palestine were taken possession of by the British. In Arabia, too, a ruler was created who would support the British. Even the Viceroy admitted that some of the conditions of peace could not but offend the Muslim community. It has been a heart-breaking episode for the Indian Muslims, and how can Hindus stand unaffected when they see their fellow countrymen thus in distress?
  • Sardar Patel, in the context of the Khilafat movement, August 1920, as quoted in Rajmohan Gandhi, Patel: A Life, Navajivan Publishing House, Ahmedabad, 1991, p. 86.

• From the 14th through the early 20th century, the Middle East consisted of a hybrid civilization composed of various tribes and peoples stretching from the Balkans down through the Arabian Peninsula under the auspices of the Ottoman Empire. To its promoters, Constantinople administered a multicultural society that balanced ethnic and religious differences into a harmonious whole. To its detractors, the Ottoman regime was a decadent, degenerate ruling class that lived above the poverty of its servants and relied upon an endless supply of slaves to feed its military and royal harems. In the end, economic and political weakness led to the empire’s unraveling, as nationalism in the wake of the first world war broke the back of the empire and led it to the carve up into the modern Turkish state and the surrounding nations.
  • Adam Smith, Sunset of the Ottomans, June 24th 2022

External links

Encyclopedic article on Ottoman Empire on Wikipedia