Talk:Ottoman Empire/Archive 9

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Murad the first Caliph

Although Murad is the first Ottoman Caliph, Selim should be mentioned in the infobox for having a stronger claim since he transferred the Caliphal Authority from Abbasid. Murad's claim is very weak. Alexis Ivanov (talk) 16:00, 29 October 2015 (UTC)

Text re partition is unclear

The current version includes this passage:

The [[Armistice of Mudros]], signed on 30 October 1918, and set the [[partition of the Ottoman Empire]] under the terms of the [[Treaty of Sèvres]]. This treaty, as designed in the [[Conference of London (1920)|conference of London]], allowed the Sultan to retain his position and title.

An armistice signed in 1918 supposedly "set" the partition under terms of a treaty that was still in the future and that, according to the Treaty of Sèvres article, wasn't even ratified? Maybe instead of "set" what's meant is "laid the groundwork for" or "later resulted in"? This should be clarified. JamesMLane t c 03:46, 22 November 2015 (UTC)

Morocco

Morocco wasn't in the ottoman empire. So i remove itAyOuBoXe (talk) 21:45, 26 December 2015 (UTC)

Parts of Morocco may have been Alexis Ivanov (talk) 05:58, 22 January 2016 (UTC)

Parts of Morocco was the name of my third jazz album. 2602:306:CCA7:81F0:DC18:75B6:5B14:1FF (talk) 13:48, 20 March 2016 (UTC)

You got any problems right there buddy? Alexis Ivanov (talk) 15:03, 20 March 2016 (UTC)

The Decline Paradigm

Wikipedia’s articles on the Ottomans are afflicted by a very serious problem. This is the problem of the Decline Paradigm. More than twenty years ago, historians of the Ottoman Empire came to the conclusion that the old formula used to write Ottoman history was flawed and unworkable. The old formula has come to be called “The Decline Paradigm,” and it said that the empire rose, reached an apex under the reign of Sultan Süleyman, and thereafter stagnated and declined until its eventual fall. Starting in the 70s and 80s, historians began to criticize this paradigm from every angle imaginable, and for two decades now there has existed a nearly universally established consensus among professional historians that in fact the Ottoman Empire did not enter a period of decline, but continued to be a vigorous and versatile state long after the death of Sultan Süleyman, throughout the periods which had previously been labeled “stagnation” and “decline.” In other words, the so-called “Decline of the Ottoman Empire” was a myth.

Yet, despite this scholarly consensus, Wikipedia’s entire framework for presenting Ottoman history to the general public is written using the Decline Paradigm. Whatever the reason - be it the frequent citation of horribly outdated and inappropriate sources like Lord Kinross’ The Ottoman Centuries (1977), or the possibility that many editors are unfamiliar with the modern academic works - Wikipedia has failed to generate an accurate picture of Ottoman history. Wikipedia’s presentation of Ottoman history, and thus the presentation which thousands or even millions of regular people see when they set out to learn about the Ottomans for the first time, is that of the outdated Decline Paradigm, universally rejected by scholars and regarded as a backwards trope of past historiography. This merits a major rewrite, a thorough re-examination of how Ottoman history is written here in the face of modern scholarship.

Some quotations from historians about the Decline Paradigm in Ottoman history:

1. Rifa’at ‘Ali Abou-El-Haj, Formation of the Modern State: The Ottoman Empire, Sixteenth to Eighteenth Centuries 2nd Ed. (Syracuse University Press, 2005), pp. 3-4.

“A noteworthy example [of a non-specialist writing comparative history that includes the Ottomans] is Perry Anderson, who in a book focused on European absolutist states, has included a chapter on the Ottoman Empire… Anderson goes further, picking up the traditional Orientalist theme of Ottoman decline and attributing it to the usual external causes… It should be pointed out than in Anderson’s defense that he is not a specialist in Early Modern Ottoman history, and he has arrived at his simplistic and narrow explanation of Ottoman affairs by faithfully following the available secondary literature. As a consequence, he winds up doing something that was not necessarily a part of his original intention, namely, reinforcing regressive paradigms through the reintroduction, in what seems to be totally new garb, of the same old clichéd interpretations of Ottoman history.” 

In Abou-El-Haj’s words, Decline is “clichéd,” “Orientalist,” “regressive,” “simplistic,” and “narrow.” It is not true history.

2. Howard, Douglas A. “Genre and myth in the Ottoman advice for kings literature,” in Aksan, Virginia H. and Daniel Goffman eds. The Early Modern Ottomans: Remapping the Empire (Cambridge University Press, 2007; 2009), 143.

“Twentieth-century Anglo-American scholarly interest in the nasihatname, however, was due in no small measure to the role of these works in reinforcing an important modern historiographical metanarrative: the rise and fall of civilizations that culminated in the rise of western civilization. The cultural significance of this story in the twentieth century, communicated to millions of Americans through the university "Western Civ" course, can hardly be overstated. In the metanarrative of rise and fall, the decline of Islamic civilization coincided with the rise of modern western civilization, and the decadent Islamic world became the main foil of the new and vigorous West and its nations... Especially after 1978 in the United States academic historians, motivated partly by appeals to a standard of verisimilitude that required a corrective to the older historical metanarrative, increasingly became preoccupied with refuting the Ottoman decline as an untrue myth.” 

Douglas Howard explains the role that Decline played in Western self-conception, and the emergence of the anti-Decline historiographical movement in the seventies. He originally wrote this article in 1988, and opposition to the Decline Thesis has since expanded from just the United States to be supported by the whole of Western academia.

3. Suraiya Faroqhi, The Ottoman Empire and the World Around it (I. B. Tauris, 2007; 2011), pp. 42-3.

“These expectations and assumptions [of decline] permeate many European archival sources dealing with the history of the sultanic domains. Since these materials usually became accessible to researchers long before their counterparts in the Ottoman archives, it is not surprising that they have left profound traces in the relevant historiography. This impact was reinforced by the fact that early republican historiography in Turkey also was much inclined to dwell on Ottoman 'corruption' and 'decline'.”

The idea of Decline permeated the European conception of the Ottomans, and thus it is logical that older histories, written before the Ottoman archives were opened to research, have this distorted view of the empire.

4. “Introduction: The Myth of Decline,” in Linda Darling, Revenue Raising and Legitimacy: Tax Collection and Finance Administration in the Ottoman Empire, 1560-1660 (1993) pp. 1-2.

“Specialists have become skeptical of this decline paradigm, feeling that it fails to explain Ottoman transformation and change. It is teleological; because we know that eventually the Ottomans became a weaker power and finally disappeared, every earlier difficulty they experienced becomes a "seed of decline," and Ottoman successes and sources of strength vanish from the record.” 

The whole first chapter of Linda Darling’s book is entitled “The Myth of Decline,” and is devoted to combating the Decline thesis. She summarizes the historical literature which was then disproving that thesis. This was back in 1993!

5. Jane Hathaway, The Arab Lands under Ottoman Rule 1517-1800 (2008) pp. 7-8.

“One of the most momentous changes to have occurred in Ottoman studies since the publication of Egypt and the Fertile Crescent (1966) is the deconstruction of the so-called 'Ottoman decline thesis' - that is, the notion that toward the end of the sixteenth century, following the reign of Sultan Suleyman I (1520-66), the empire entered a lengthy decline from which it never truly recovered, despite heroic attempts at westernizing reforms in the nineteenth century. Over the last twenty years or so, as Chapter 4 will point out, historians of the Ottoman Empire have rejected the narrative of decline in favor of one of crisis and adaptation: after weathering a wretched economic and demographic crisis in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, the Ottoman Empire adjusted its character from that of a military conquest state to that of a territorially more stable, bureaucratic state whose chief concern was no longer conquering new territories but extracting revenue from the territories it already controlled while shoring up its image as the bastion of Sunni Islam.” 

Jane Hathaway clearly notes that “historians of the Ottoman Empire have rejected the narrative of decline.” Not just that she personally has, but that all Ottomanist historians have done so, collectively.

6. Leslie Pierce, “Changing Perceptions of the Ottoman Empire: the Early Centuries,” Mediterranean Historical Review 19/1 (2004): 22.

“Scholarship of past [30] years has liberated the post-Süleymanic period from the straightjacket of decline in which every new phenomenon was seen as corruption of pristine ‘classical’ institutions.”

Leslie Pierce, 11 years after her previously cited book, says definitively that scholarship has been “liberated” from decline.

7. Metin Kunt, “Introduction to Part I,” in Süleyman the Magnificent and His Age: the Ottoman Empire in the Early Modern World, ed. Metin Kunt and Christine Woodhead (London and New York: Longman, 1995), 37-38.

“…students of Ottoman history have learned better than to discuss a “decline” which supposedly began during the reigns of Süleyman’s “ineffectual” successors and then continued for centuries. Süleyman’s sons and grandsons, as sultans, merely continued in the same detached imperial tradition that was first fashioned during Süleyman’s long reign. As for broader institutional and social fluctuations and dislocations, these are properly to be seen as features of a transition which eventually reached a new equilibrium in the seventeenth century. The “time of troubles” may have seemed of millennial significance to Ottomans themselves; we should see its features rather as aspects of the Ottoman effort to confront the challenges of a changing and widening world, beyond their frontiers and experience.”

Metin Kunt, more than twenty years ago, here repeats what the previous historians cited here were saying: historians have learned better than to speak of decline. Decline is a theory which has been disproven and abandoned.

8. Baki Tezcan, The Second Ottoman Empire: Political and Social Transformation in the Early Modern World (Cambridge University Press, 2010), 9.

“Ottomanist historians have produced several works in the last decades, revising the traditional understanding of this period from various angles, some of which were not even considered as topics of historical inquiry in the mid-twentieth century. Thanks to these works, the conventional narrative of Ottoman history – that in the late sixteenth century the Ottoman Empire entered a prolonged period of decline marked by steadily increasing military decay and institutional corruption – has been discarded.” 

Tezcan doesn’t say that the Decline Theory is being challenged. He doesn’t say it’s being debated. He says it has been “discarded.” It is no longer considered acceptable history. It is wrong. And Wikipedia must change the way it writes Ottoman history as a result.

Chamboz (talk) 17:53, 26 July 2016 (UTC)

'Further Reading' book list

I recently trimmed the book list under 'Further Reading' to remove non-academic sources. This was reverted by @Rjensen:, who said to "keep relevant books by established publishers. Wiki appeals to advanced students and also to general readers who want popular books not heavy monographs." While this is true in theory, it's not a good justification on its own. Just because a book has been published by an "established publisher" does not mean it is considered accurate, particularly if it is very old, as is Kinross' book The Ottoman Centuries (1977). Also, just because a book is academic does not mean that it's a "heavy monograph." It is entirely possible for us to recommend modern popular books which are written by specialists in their field, such as Caroline Finkel's Osman's Dream (2005). This ensures that our readers are exposed to accurate and up to date perspectives on Ottoman history and the tired old stereotypes which so often appear in books written by non-specialists are not perpetuated. It's harmful, not helpful, to recommend pop-history - especially in its current form, where the pop-history and academic history are placed side by side as if they were equal. Chamboz (talk) 07:30, 4 August 2016 (UTC)

the criteria used by non-scholars is how good is the book to read. Goodwin for example takes 4 and 5 stars in the reviews as a triumph in that regard. One Johns Hopkins professor says in NY TIMES "Jason Goodwin, a gifted English travel writer and journalist, has gone back over the material of the Ottoman Empire, and returned with a work of dazzling beauty." How many of the scholarly tomes would pass the dazzling beauty test?? Chamboz should read the reviews a little more closely. Aksan for example says, "Those who have the temerity to jump into the Ottoman longue durée waters are few and far between, partly because it is difficult to cover over six hundred years of history, and partly because of the minefields that await the unwary, in ethno-religious sensitivities and national myths. Little has been published to replace the late Stanford Shaw's two-volume work, The History of Turkey, or even Lord Kinross's The Ottoman Centuries, which has also been reissued." That sounds like an endorsement if you want a long-term perspective in one book and are not prepared to read scholarly journals. I think there is an assumption by Chamboz here that the value of a book depends entirely on whether it rejects one particular aspect of Ottoman History (re the "decline-and-fall model"). That sounds like a new graduate student who has just taken his first seminar in historiography. The decline-fall model applies to only one of many aspects of the Ottoman Empire, and making it the sole criteria is in my opinion too narrow a perspective for Wikipedia. Save it for a scholarly article instead of imposing it here. If a book is very good on colorful description or psychological insight or wars or economics or arts or religion or society --well too bad, out it must go if it flunks test #1. Except maybe for Finkel, Osman's Dream i suspect ALL books available to a popular audience flunk his one and only test. That is this proposed criterion basically rejects all of popular history and expels all of the Wiki readers who want colorful, lively highly readable books rather than advanced technical monographs or journal articles. The fact is the scholarly books are NOT appropriate for most Wiki readers without advanced training in history--they are too hard to read and impossible to enjoy. Rjensen (talk) 08:13, 4 August 2016 (UTC)

Unfortunately, Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, and that means you can’t use entertainment value as the primary method of analyzing a source’s quality. A book’s star rating has little to do with its factual accuracy. Your John Hopkins professor reviewing Goodwin’s book (Fouad Ajami) was not a historian of the Ottoman Empire, but a writer on contemporary Middle Eastern affairs. Why should a review by a non-specialist be taken as evidence that the source is sound? And on that topic, it’s interesting that you didn’t type the next sentence in Virginia Aksan's review, because in it she explicitly dismisses Goodwin’s book as nothing more than a “fictionalized oriental tale.” (p. 112). In the sentence after that she praises Caroline Finkel’s book as the necessary replacement for Kinross and Shaw. She’s giving the opposite of an endorsement to those two books – she’s saying they need to be replaced!

Leaving that aside, your strawman characterization of me is totally uncalled for. Yes, I oppose the decline thesis because practically everyone who specializes Ottoman history opposes the decline thesis. That doesn’t mean it’s the only yardstick by which I measure the worth of historical works. My goal is just to get the modern view of Ottoman history onto Wikipedia. Its history articles shouldn’t be based on outdated sources and pop-history, just like its science articles shouldn’t be based on outdated sources and pop-science. This should not be a controversial idea.

As I said before, academic does not mean “advanced, technical monographs.” Academic historians can and do write books which are accessible to a general audience. These books are available, and we should be recommending them. We should not be recommending books which were published forty years ago and are widely recognized as being outdated. We should not be recommending books which have been characterized by professionals as “fictionalized oriental tales.” This is just common sense. Chamboz (talk) 08:56, 4 August 2016 (UTC)

I think you mix up the role of the footnotes (which is to be up to date & Scholarly) and the Further Reading, which is to guide non-expert readers. Readers who are Ottoman Experts certainly do not need it! But Wikipedia has a few hundred million readers we have to serve. They want one or two readable books they can understand and appreciate without a grounding in historiography or linguistics. They will not get them from experts I fear: the statement that Academic historians can and do write books which are accessible to a general audience. is refuted easily enough in the Ottoman case: "Ottoman historians have rarely stirred themselves to write for a general audience." [Finkel p xi] and Those who have the temerity to jump into the Ottoman longue durée waters are few and far between [Aksan]. So who are the beautiful writers and thrilling story tellers you are recommending for the general reader? Rjensen (talk) 10:57, 4 August 2016 (UTC)

If what people want is “one or two readable books they can understand and appreciate,” why is the “Further reading” list 27 items long? This serves only to confuse people. Readers are given the impression that the outdated and orientalist Kinross is just as highly recommended as Finkel, when the latter is in fact a total replacement for the former. Aksan says “little has been written,” not “nothing has been written.” Aside from Finkel, M. Şükrü Hanioğlu’s A Brief History of the Late Ottoman Empire (2008) is another narrative-based history. Also worth mentioning is Jane Hathaway’s The Arab Lands under Ottoman Rule 1516-1800 (2008). Both were not yet published when Aksan wrote the above-mentioned review. And in light of that review, I am at least removing Goodwin and Kinross’ books from the list. As you’ve seen, the former is looked upon negatively while the latter is replaced by Finkel. Chamboz (talk) 17:40, 4 August 2016 (UTC)

popular readers are limited by what's available in their library and by popular vs scholarly writing style. Pop readers usually want broad topics with a focus on good writing & well illustrated. geography is important (lots of them planning a first trip). they like people and events not deep trends or statistical tables. Brief History of the Late Ottoman Empire starts about 1790, missing most of the history. it's quite advanced & is focused on intellectual history & ideology--which I suggest are not popular topics--ie not a book to recommend to your next door neighbor. The Arab Lands under Ottoman Rule 1516-1800 is narrowly about an offbeat topic: the Arab minority [Egypt & Syria etc] & ignores the main stream of the Empire. Neither book is notable for colorful writing or story-telling. (H-Net said, Arab Lands neither offers the general reader a coherent survey of the history of the ‘Arab Lands’, nor does it contribute much to scholarship, of which her other works abound.) It just goes to show that specialists avoid writing the one big book that covers the whole history of the whole Empire. Rjensen (talk) 18:08, 4 August 2016 (UTC)

So your criticism of the other recommendations, in short, is that they are not identical to Finkel's Osman's Dream. Yes, it's true, Finkel's book is the only modern single-volume history of the empire written by an academic. When we have such a well-received book, which is both factually accurate and highly readable for a general audience, what is the merit to recommending by its side the older and outdated histories it has come to replace? Why must a history book encompass the entire chronological and geographical span of the empire's history in order to fit into your conception of what the popular reader wants? Is it not possible for the general reader to be interested only in the empire's recent history, or only in its impact on the Arab Middle East, in light of recent events? Douglas Howard discusses the issue of Ottoman history for a popular audience in his 2004 review "Three Recent Ottoman Histories," and further recommends Daniel Goffman's The Ottoman Empire and Early Modern Europe, (2002), saying it's likely to be of great interest to general readers. It is, however, not a survey of the entire history of the empire from start to finish and from Hungary to Yemen. Would that disqualify it from being recommended here? Chamboz (talk) 18:32, 4 August 2016 (UTC)

Anyway, since you haven't reverted my latest edit, I assume you're okay with the removal of Kinross and Goodwin, in which case I'm satisfied with it for now. It might be good to try to reform this list at some point in the future, so we can provide good suggestions for whatever category of book the reader might want to find - right now it's almost random. But the most important thing was the removal of those particularly egregious titles, which has been done. Chamboz (talk) 19:29, 4 August 2016 (UTC)

Austria

Austria hasnever been part of the Ottoman empire — Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.244.63.126 (talk) 21:57, 29 October 2015 (UTC)

Parts of Austria was under the Ottoman Empire as evident by the Ottoman–Habsburg wars in 1520s and 1530s and the Little Hungary War. Alexis Ivanov (talk) 03:35, 30 October 2015 (UTC)

This is interesting: The Turks reached Vienna twice, so therefore parts of Austria were conquered. But were any parts of historical Austria (as opposed to parts of the Hapsburg empire) ever actually annexed by the Ottomans? Missaeagle (talk) 19:02, 5 August 2016 (UTC)

No, they weren't. I don't think it's reasonable to list Austria as having been part of the empire. No part of the country was ever integrated into the Ottoman administration. Chamboz (talk) 21:27, 5 August 2016 (UTC)

Otranto and today part of...

Hi everyone, I removed Italy as a country in "Today part of..." as the Ottoman Empire sacked Otranto but never established a government or incorporated it into the Empire.MarcusVetus✠ 18:28, 8 September 2016 (UTC)

Removing totally inaccurate and unnecessary paragraph

In the section on "Stagnation" one can see this paragraph:

"The stagnation and decline, Stephen Lee argues, was relentless after the death of Suleiman in 1566, interrupted by a few short revivals or reform and recovery. The decline gathered speed so that the Empire in 1699 was, "a mere shadow of that which intimidated East and West alike in 1566."[48] Although there are dissenting scholars, most historians point to "degenerate Sultans, incompetent Grand Viziers, debilitated and ill-equipped armies, corrupt officials, avaricious speculators, grasping enemies, and treacherous friends."[49] The main cause was a failure of leadership, as Lee argues the first 10 sultans from 1292 to 1566, with one exception, had performed admirably. The next 13 sultans from 1566 to 1703, with two exceptions, were lackadaisical or incompetent rulers, says Lee.[50] In a highly centralized system, the failure at the center proved fatal. A direct result was the strengthening of provincial elites who increasingly ignored Constantinople. Secondly the military strength of European enemies grew stronger and stronger, while the Ottoman armies and arms scarcely improved.[51][52] Finally the Ottoman economic system grew distorted and impoverished, as war caused inflation, world trade moved in other directions, and the deterioration of law and order made economic progress difficult.[53]"

This paragraph is totally unsalvageable. Nothing in it is true and for its main citations it relies almost entirely upon books which are either outdated, written by historians who aren't specialists on the Ottoman Empire, or both. Other citations are misinterpreted, such as that of Grant, who actually argues the opposite of the point made in the sentence he's being cited for. This whole paragraph is not even necessary - it's just juxtaposed in the middle of the regular narrative. While the entire section needs to be totally rewritten, this particular paragraph is the worst of the lot and its removal will only do good, so I've removed it.Chamboz (talk) 16:30, 15 September 2016 (UTC)

Excessive citations

User:Gündoğdu has placed more than a dozen citations under the claim that the Ottomans were Oğuz. Spamming unverifiable citations (many of which lack even page numbers) in order to make a point is not how one should edit on Wikipedia. Pick only the best and most reliable sources, and provide quotes from them to support your position. Having a large number of unverifiable citations is not good editing, and it actually makes your position look weaker, since it makes it seem as though you're searching for sources solely to prove a point and grabbing any and everything you can find, no matter the verifiability. Chamboz (talk) 16:00, 28 September 2016 (UTC)

User:Gündoğdu I didn't erase your sources because they were unreliable, I erased them because they were unnecessary. We do not need three citations, one of which isn't even in English, for the simple fact that Osman was a Turk. We already have the citation of Finkel, a scholarly author who wrote the most modern and up to date general survey of Ottoman history that exists right now. Could you explain why you think it necessary to include your additional citations as well as Finkel? Chamboz (talk) 19:15, 28 September 2016 (UTC)

Kayı

The Ottomans' claim to Kayı origins has been called into question by several reputable historians, and should not be presented as clear and undisputed fact.

"That they hailed from the Kayı branch of the Oğuz confederacy seems to be a creative "rediscovery" in the genealogical concoction of the fifteenth century. It is missing not only in Ahmedi but also, and more importantly, in the Yahşi Fakih-Aşıkpaşazade narrative, which gives its own version of an elaborate genealogical family tree going back to Noah. If there was a particularly significant claim to Kayı lineage, it is hard to imagine that Yahşi Fakih would not have heard of it."

Kafadar, Cemal (1995). Between Two Worlds: The Construction of the Ottoman State. p. 122.

"Let us recall here that behind the translation of this work [Tevarih-i Al-i Selçuk] was the Ottoman administration’s establishment of a political construct as proof that they came from the Kayı branch of the Oğuz in order to oppose the challenge of the Karakoyunlu."

Ahmet Yaşar Ocak, "Social, Cultural, and Intellectual Life," in The Cambridge History of Turkey, Volume 1. (Cambridge University Press, 2009) p. 410.

Chamboz (talk) 21:49, 21 September 2016 (UTC)

This is interesting. Alexis Ivanov (talk) 20:04, 28 September 2016 (UTC)

Indeed, there's a Turkish editor who is dead set on the idea that most historians think that the Kayı lineage is real, but the more I research it the more historians I find saying that it's not. So Finkel, for instance, has this to say:

"In 1435 Tamerlane's heir Shah-Rukh sent ceremonial robes to the rulers of the various Anatolian states, including the Ottoman sultan, demanding that they wear them as a mark of allegiance. Murad did not feel able to refuse, but apparently did not wear them on official occasions. He fought back with a propaganda campaign of his own, minting coins with the seal of the Kayı tribe of the Oğuz Turks of Central Asia from whom the Ottoman house sought to establish its descent, a dynastic conceit which found acceptance in the east-central Anatolian Turcoman emirate of Dulkadır and among the Karakoyunlu, who unlike the Karamanids and Akkoyunlu were partisans of the Ottomans." Osman's Dream, 42.

According to Cemal Kafadar, the claim to Kayı lineage in modern historiography began with Mehmet Fuat Köprülü in the 1930s, who used it to legitimize the Turkish nature of the Ottoman state against contemporary historians who had argued (using really ridiculous racial theories) that it was Greek converts who accounted for the Ottomans' success. The truthfulness of the Kayı lineage then took hold in Turkish nationalist historiography, but most modern historians seem to be very skeptical, since the first evidence we have for it appears in the middle of the fifteenth century. Nothing traceable back as far as Osman. Chamboz (talk) 20:14, 28 September 2016 (UTC)

"Let us recall here that behind the translation of this work [Tevarih-i Al-i Selçuk] was the Ottoman administration’s establishment of a political construct as proof that they came from the Kayı branch of the Oğuz in order to oppose the challenge of the Karakoyunlu."

do not get me wrong but this is ridiculous.Karakoyunlu and ottoman are not in a relationship,hostility and competition.They were active in azerbaijan and eastern anatolia.They don't into competition and relations with ottomans. such a thing is not in question. Have to put forward evidence for this claim sources. How do you explain this if it is fictitious??

Suleyman Shah-Ertuğrul-Sheikh Edebali

money that has suppressed Osman:http://www.hakikat.com/dergi/212/osmangazisikke.jpg writes that:http://www.hakikat.com/dergi/211/tarih3.jpg

Ottoman money is seen in the registration of Kayı(tribe) tamgha: http://www.kayiboyu.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/oguzlarinunutulanyurdu2.jpg

You need very reliable sources for such large claims. It is the first nomadic cultures of ottoman.It is certain that nomadic. You need a concrete and definitive source for your claim.--Gündoğdu (talk) 21:15, 28 September 2016 (UTC)

On the coinage, to quote Cemal Kafadar: "A coin issued in the name of Orhan in 1327 contains a symbol that some scholars were inclined to read as the stamp of the Kayı tribe, but this has been shown to be a misreading. The Kayı symbol appears on Ottoman coins only during the reign of Murad II (1421-51), that is, in Yazıcızade's lifetime, when the Kayı lineage had been re-remembered" Between Two Worlds, p. 184n4. For his claim that the symbol was misread, he cites F. Sümer, Oğuzlar (Türkmenler): Tarihleri-Boy Teşkilâtı-Destanları, 3rd. enl. ed. (Istanbul, 1980), 220. Now, User:Gündoğdu, looking back at the citations you put in the article to claim that the Ottomans were Kayı, you actually cited this specific book which Kafadar cites. So did you actually read the book, and if so didn't you see that the coin was misinterpreted? -Chamboz (talk) 21:22, 28 September 2016 (UTC)

I changed to the correct picture.I did not realize put incorrect image.i corrected.--Gündoğdu (talk) 21:25, 28 September 2016 (UTC)

So how do you explain them:Suleyman Shah-Ertuğrul-Sheikh Edebali . figment of the imagination are not people.Anatolian Seljuks and kayı tribe it is certain that in relations. they emigrated to Bilecik Söğüt. For sure they are nomads ottomans. How do you explain it??--Gündoğdu (talk) 21:39, 28 September 2016 (UTC)

I never said those people weren't real. Actually we know for a fact that Ertuğrul was real because he appears on Osman's coins. Sheikh Edebali was most likely real, because a contemporary source mentions someone with the same name in the region, and a later Ottoman document describes certain lands which were supposedly given to his descendants (it might have been made up, but it's believable).

So I'm not saying those people weren't real. I'm saying that the rest of Osman's genealogy, going back to Kayı Alp, is not reliable and may have been made up in the 15th century. Chamboz (talk) 21:54, 28 September 2016 (UTC)

Main Map is Inaccurate

The main map has some inaccuracies. Aside from general inexactness, it also fails to depict the Ottoman conquest in Transylvania and Hungary during the seventeenth century, wrongly depicts Podolia as having been acquired under Suleiman the Magnificent, and wrongly depicts Yemen as having been acquired after Suleiman the Magnificent. There are other issues too, but these are the main ones as far as I'm concerned. Also, to be fully historically correct, Right-Bank Ukraine should be depicted as a vassal of the Ottoman Empire in 1683. Chamboz (talk) 22:46, 16 September 2016 (UTC)

I noticed some of those as well. Berkaysnklf (talk) 18:22, 5 October 2016 (UTC)

The table predecessor and successor section problem.

Ottoman predecessor state of the 17 only shows 15 of them. The same problems are other in. Ottoman successor state of the 20 only shows 15 of them. How do we solve it ? Ottoman Empire predecessor and successor --Gündoğdu (talk) 08:07, 14 October 2016 (UTC)

Osman being Turkish

@User:Gündoğdu, you don't need to cite that the sky is blue. Osman being Turkish is a very simple fact. It doesn't need a large number of citations, which only clutter up the article. I can't imagine why you insist on using three citations instead of one. Chamboz (talk) 23:26, 20 October 2016 (UTC)

See also WP:LEADCITE. TompaDompa (talk) 23:31, 20 October 2016 (UTC)

Even though this is unnecessary the source of origin should be stated. It can not be specified without a source because it is an important issue.--Gündoğdu (talk) 23:33, 20 October 2016 (UTC)

Its origin is stated. It comes from the citation of Osman's Dream by Caroline Finkel at the end of the clause. It's totally unnecessary to include two more citations on top of that. It just clutters up the sentence. Chamboz (talk) 23:35, 20 October 2016 (UTC)

Why is there no "Today part of" section anymore?

Can I see the discussion link for this, if there was a discussion to exclude it ? Berkaysnklf (talk), 24 October 2016, 18:48 (UTC)

@Berkaysnklf: #"Today part of" TompaDompa (talk) 19:01, 24 October 2016 (UTC)

End year

Every now and then, the end year gets changed between 1922 and 1923. Personally, I would prefer to leave it as 1922/1923 and add an explanatory note about the end of the Ottoman Empire. I have therefore done so, but the note could definitely be improved upon.

The technical limitations of Template:Infobox former country present us with a number of problems:

• The parameter year_end is coupled both to the duration at the top of the infobox (1299–1922 or 1299–1923) and to the parameters event_end and date_end.
  • This can be circumvented by using the parameter life_span, as I have done.
• There can be only one event_post (not, for instance, an event_post1 and an event_post2).
  • The regular parameter event_date1 (and so on) cannot be used for dates later than year_end (I tried, and it puts the events in the wrong order), so that cannot be used to circumvent the problem.
    • Leaving the parameter year_end empty gives an error message for the duration (even if the parameter life_span is used – the error message overrides the manual input) and an error message in the list of events that says to enter an end year.
      • As long as the parameter life_span is used it really makes no difference which year is used for year_end, so I would recommend keeping the last or penultimate event in the list as event_end even if it would be inaccurate to describe it as the event that marked the end of the Empire.

This solution was based on the infobox over at Roman Empire, for the record. TompaDompa (talk) 00:03, 30 October 2016 (UTC)

Preambular paragraph

dynasty information is available on its dynasty page.Ottoman dynasty. So removed from the preambular paragraph because it is so unnecessary.--Gündoğdu (talk) 21:06, 27 October 2016 (UTC)

The fact that the dynasty was founded by a figure named Osman is not at all unnecessary, and saying it was founded by "Oghuz Turks" is misleading. There were plenty of people in the service of Osman who were not Turks. I would agree that mentioning the specific origin of Osman, beyond the fact that he was Turkish, is unnecessary though. Chamboz (talk) 21:18, 27 October 2016 (UTC)

Oghuz Turks not misleading. They were originally oghuz tribe. The Turkish people are Oghuz Turks. Service of Osman people and The origin of the dynasty is unrelated from each other.--Gündoğdu (talk) 21:26, 27 October 2016 (UTC)

Yes, Osman was Turkish, but not all of his followers were. Saying the empire was 'founded' by Oghuz Turks leaves out all the people who were not Turks, such as Köse Mihal. Chamboz (talk) 21:36, 27 October 2016 (UTC)

Mongol empire established a so that the Turkic tribes that was taking place in this formation. That does not make them partners dynasty. You say many irrevelant things.--Gündoğdu (talk) 21:43, 27 October 2016 (UTC)

It is very clear that the Ottoman Turks in Oghuz, and this was stated in paragraph. The sources of nearly all agree on this issue. Please do not make misleading arrangements.--Gündoğdu (talk) 21:56, 27 October 2016 (UTC)

Yes, the Ottoman Turks were Oghuz, but the point is that not all the early followers of Osman were Turks. Many were Byzantines, both converts to Islam and some Christians. Of these Köse Mihal is the most famous, as he was one of the great lords of Osman's time. Chamboz (talk) 22:17, 27 October 2016 (UTC)

Resources are very clear. Do not revert when such a situation. You return again without justification. Please you indicate clearly the words of the on the subject. You say it is not a consensus on what. Please if you speak more clearly better.--Gündoğdu (talk) 22:45, 27 October 2016 (UTC)

I don't agree with saying "The Ottoman Empire was founded by Oghuz Turks" because it ignores the major role played by non-Turks in the foundation of the Ottoman Empire. I hope that's clear. It's much better to say the empire was founded by Osman, because we can then specify in the article that Osman's followers included both Turks and non-Turks, while he himself was a Turk. Chamboz (talk) 22:53, 27 October 2016 (UTC)

We are obliged to note that while these people are Oghuz Turks. We have to specify it. This is the case in all of the page. There is nothing wrong here. Where is the situation you're uncomfortable. We're talking about their origin.--Gündoğdu (talk) 23:04, 27 October 2016 (UTC)

"was an empire founded at the end of the thirteenth century in northwestern Anatolia by the Turkish tribal leader Osman."

"Turkish" already links to "Oghuz Turks", though. So it is already specified. What you're doing is erasing the name of "Osman", which is what I disagree with. Let's just wait for someone else to give their opinion. Chamboz (talk) 23:08, 27 October 2016 (UTC)

Quite a lot happened while I was asleep... I am quite happy with the current solution to the lead. I never understood why Osman should not be mentioned. --T*U (talk) 07:52, 28 October 2016 (UTC)

@Chamboz:; You did return causeless way back. Sentence disorder was corrected by source. You have a specific reason to back ? Please do not revert unnecessary.--Gündoğdu (talk) 13:44, 4 November 2016 (UTC)

Sorry, I should have explained - I still think it's very misleading to say that the empire was "founded by Oghuz Turks" because it misleads the reader into thinking it was founded exclusively by Oghuz Turks. But the empire was multi-ethnic from the very start, Turks were only the largest and most important group, but not the only group. Chamboz (talk) 13:50, 4 November 2016 (UTC)

Your way of thinking is very erroneous. Those people were living under the rule of the state. Those people was not a partner in the state and the dynasty. You did return again causeless way back. Oguz Turks are empire builders and managers. There is nothing wrong and misleading here. What are you trying to say? Please do not revert without reason.--Gündoğdu (talk) 14:10, 4 November 2016 (UTC)

May I suggest a solution: If we say

"was an empire founded at the end of the thirteenth century in northwestern Anatolia by the Oghuz Turk tribal leader Osman."

we will mention the Oghuz Turks directly without saying that they were all Oghuz Turks. --T*U (talk) 14:35, 4 November 2016 (UTC)

No @Gündoğdu:, they were partners in the state. Figures such as Köse Mihal were major lords under the Ottomans, and the Ottoman army contained significant numbers of Greek converts and even Christians from a very early date. Heath Lowry's book The Nature of the Early Ottoman State (2003) is a great source on this topic. T*U's solution works for me by the way, though to be correct it should say "Oghuz Turkish" rather than "Oghuz Turk", I think. Chamboz (talk) 15:31, 4 November 2016 (UTC)

Oh, I see User:Gündoğdu already did that more or less - if it stays the way it is now I'm fine with it. Chamboz (talk) 15:33, 4 November 2016 (UTC)

User:Chamboz I fixed it, but your opinion is wrong. Köse mihal later became a Muslim and has been helpful to them. The vast majority of Muslim states such as the armies of the Umayyad and Abbasid dynasties was composed of Turks and have been found in management. There are in the same situation in the Mongol Empire. This does not make them a partner in the state and dynasty. There are countless examples more on similar topics. your opinion is very wrong.--Gündoğdu (talk) 16:00, 4 November 2016 (UTC)

"Today part of"

This addition to the infobox is not only a magnet for the POV-pushers ("look how big we were!") who keep making dubious additions (Morocco, Malta, Niger, Ethiopia, Slovakia, even Uganda!), it is also completely useless and highly misleading. The territorial extent is depicted in useful form by the map, and that is more than sufficient. A laundry list of countries paints a misleading picture, as sometimes only a tiny part of the country in question was part of the empire(e.g. Russia), and often for an insignificant length of time. Athenean (talk) 06:12, 9 October 2016 (UTC)

I added a comment to that effect in the infobox, lest people add it back. TompaDompa (talk) 09:24, 9 October 2016 (UTC)

Malta and uganda not part of ottoman empire. Ottomans malta invasion but they could not be dominate. They do not appear on the list.

• Slovakia part of ottoman empire: Eğri Eyalet and Budin Eyalet and Uyvar Eyalet.
• Ethiopia part of ottoman empire: Egypt Eyalet - Habesh Eyalet already part of the map. Habesh are today Ethiopia..

Administrative divisions of the Ottoman Empire - Kaza - eyalet - beylerbeylik - vilayet

• Niger part of Ottoman Kavar Kaza [1]
• Morocco was vassal to the Ottoman empire and Ottoman ruled morocco directly certain period.

map is not 100% accurate.It can not be decided by a historian map. Learn and research management system should be made according. You did not have direct discussions rather than delete the page. Wikipedia empire maps are not 100% accurate. Determined in accordance with the historical research. Do you need to discuss before deleting.

• Vassal and tributary states of the Ottoman Empire

I added back to the list. Deleting without discussion is inappropriate and malicious. --Gündoğdu (talk) 10:15, 9 October 2016 (UTC)

Slovakia isn't at all dubious, the Ottomans controlled a large segment of the country from 1663-1684. The Ottomans also participated in the colonization of Africa in the nineteenth century to a degree greater than previously assumed, although I'm not familiar with the status of research on this topic. Morocco, Malta, Ethiopia, and probably Uganda shouldn't be included. If we're going to have an infobox like this we should only include countries situated on lands directly administered by the Ottoman Empire, not vassal states. Though I agree that in general this infobox is not really useful to begin with. I'd be fine with not having it at all. Chamboz (talk) 13:54, 9 October 2016 (UTC)

If there is to be a list, we can include the following as indisputably having territory that was part of the empire:

        Albania, Algeria, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Djibouti, Egypt, Eritrea, Georgia, Greece, Hungary, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Kosovo, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Macedonia, Moldova, Montenegro, Palestine, Romania, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Serbia, Slovakia, Sudan, Syria, Tunisia, Turkey, Ukraine, Yemen.

The rest is up to what reliable sources can show, but this should be our starting point since there's no reasonable way to disagree with anything on this list. Chamboz (talk) 20:49, 9 October 2016 (UTC)

That's 37 countries, for the record. TompaDompa (talk) 20:54, 9 October 2016 (UTC)

That's not the point though. A laundry list of countries is completely useless to our readers. A map is useful. A list is not. A list is also misleading to our readers, since it implies the Ottomans occupied a conutry in its entirety, which is not the case for most of those entries. That's hy we use maps to represent empires and not lists. Athenean (talk) 22:00, 9 October 2016 (UTC)

I agree with you in principle, but looking at the page on the Roman Empire for instance shows that there all countries are listed in the same way. "Russia" and "Iran" are there listed. But yes, the maps are more important, and they are also unfortunately awful in quality. Chamboz (talk) 22:05, 9 October 2016 (UTC)

If I may be so bold, the WP:Editing policy states that "on Wikipedia a lack of content is better than misleading or false content". If there is consensus that the list is misleading, it should be removed. TompaDompa (talk) 22:10, 9 October 2016 (UTC)

Where is misleading information. Can you give examples? This list is located in each empire pages. If misleading information, please sample data. We can do the necessary research. There are already discussions and reliable source of several countries. Please give examples where you think it was a mistake.

• Eyalet

--Gündoğdu (talk) 08:26, 10 October 2016 (UTC)

FA-class articles, the highest quality articles on wikipedia, do not include this meaningless laundry list of countries (e.g. Byzantine Empire. I don't care about low quality articles. The list is useless and misleading, the article is better off without it. Athenean (talk) 04:06, 11 October 2016 (UTC)

Firstly, the political entities of today hardly ever existed during the extant of the Ottoman Empire. We need to look into the technicalities of the matter. Morocco, as an independent republic, didn't exist at the time. It wasn't even known by that name. Syria, for example, never existed, and just about every other country in Turkey's neighborhood was pretty much a non-existent national political entity at the time. Their borders have changed over the years, so has their culture, language, and religion. Our understanding of what Kosovo is today wasn't our same understanding of Kosovo as we recognize it to be in 1560, 1970, 1995, or 2006. Conquering Algeria back then is not the same as conquering Algeria today. Modern Algeria's borders are entirely different than what it was at the time when the OE conquered a sliver of its contemporary modern borders. All in all, this list complicates these matters and misleads the readership into believing the Ottoman Empire was something it was not. Its got to go. Étienne Dolet (talk) 04:24, 11 October 2016 (UTC)

Historian's note - the term "Syria" has been around since Babylonian times as a region. 50.111.211.140 (talk) 04:30, 11 October 2016 (UTC)

Yes, as a geographical term. But not the political term that signifies the Syrian Republic as we know it today...Hatay included ;) Étienne Dolet (talk) 04:33, 11 October 2016 (UTC)

And use it in its historical or geographical sense inside Turkey and you risk going to prison for insulting Turkishness! Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 14:27, 14 October 2016 (UTC)

This list is located on page 98% of the empires. and it shows the state spread the field. If you have any thoughts in this way must be removed from all of them. You say too many irrelevant things. This list shows the empire on the expansion area. There is no consensus for removal. This is something damaging. if you have such thoughts should be removed from all of them;

• Roman Empire
• Achaemenid Empire
• Umayyad Caliphate
• Holy Roman Empire
• Russian Empire
• Sasanian Empire
• Rashidun Caliphate
• Second French Empire
• Spanish Empire
• Western Roman Empire
• Habsburg Monarchy

If you think that this list is useless. On other pages has the same situation. You need to consider the removal of all. There is no consensus for removal And list has the necessary resources. A list of which can not be removed, reliable sources. This is harm and was vandalism.

Administrative divisions of the Ottoman Empire - eyalet - Kaza - beylerbeylik - vilayet Here are the necessary information.

There is no consensus. It has the resources. Damaging - cynical attitude - frivolity and abusive behavior will have to be reported

The list is not a list of newly added. There were already on the page. The list has been removed as harmful as and malicious. The list has been deleted for no reason and opened the discussion. Adding the list is not the subject of debate. There were already on the page. . --Gündoğdu (talk) 08:58, 11 October 2016 (UTC)

See [2] Kingdom of Armenia (antiquity) regarding the big words "This addition to the

None of those articles are FA-class. They are in rather poor shape and are not useful as models. Athenean (talk) 07:31, 12 October 2016 (UTC)

The list has the necessary resources. Removed in an unjust way. Adding the list is not the subject of debate. The list has been removed for no reason and debate opened. The list there were. This list is located in each empire page. If you have a thought in this way it should be removed all. Because they are all in the same situation. Unlike the others, this list has the necessary resources.

Administrative divisions of the Ottoman Empire - eyalet - Kaza - beylerbeylik - vilayet Here are the necessary information.

We are not discussing here the addition list. You removed the list causeless. You said misleading remarks. The list is not a list of newly added. Please correct the error you have made. The list pages 98%. that are taking place in.--Gündoğdu (talk) 07:56, 12 October 2016 (UTC)

• Oppose inclusion — The list seems to be absent from all "Featured Article" historical empires. "Other stuff exists" is widely rejected by the English Wikipedia community, especially when the other stuff is not either featured or good status. It also seems to me to be excessive detail which does not significantly contribute to a better understanding of the subject. The map of the empire lets the reader see at a glance the true geographical extent of it. The main prose is the place to talk about the most significant parts of the empire as they relate to the world today. Murph9000 (talk) 18:24, 12 October 2016 (UTC)

If you have that way of thinking it is necessary to remove the list of all empires. because: This list is not a list of newly added.There was already on the page. This list has the necessary resources. It was not on adding discussions but discussion came to other places. I do not see the added damage. While there should be added the necessary resources.--Gündoğdu (talk) 18:51, 12 October 2016 (UTC)

I've created a new and much more accurate map for 1683. Chamboz (talk) 22:02, 12 October 2016 (UTC)

I think it's better to discuss this issue on another related board too. Per consensus, we can decide about all of these articles. Just like MOS:NOETHNICGALLERIES. --Wario-Man (talk) 10:12, 13 October 2016 (UTC)

Per Athenean and others, I'd suggest we go for a map, not the list. Richard Keatinge (talk) 15:11, 13 October 2016 (UTC)

Whether we use the "today part of" in this article can be determined by the community. However, Murph9000 and Athenean, there are FAs that use the parameter, Song dynasty and Tang dynasty are two examples. Since "today" is a valid parameter in the former country infobox, a blanket consensus to not use it should be proposed on that infobox's talk page.--3family6 (Talk to me | See what I have done) 19:53, 24 October 2016 (UTC)

Contrary to Athenean's claims considerable sections of those countries were for a period centrally administered by the Ottoman Empire. Uyvar Eyalet has corporated most of the modern-day Slovakia into the Ottoman Empire, for example. And I think, it is pretty incorrect to take the "Today part of" section out when as a basic example Habsburg Monarchy or Russian Empire or Austria-Hungary or Holy Roman Empire (states which are often considered as main rivals of Ottoman Empire) has that section. I think it should be a collapsible list and accompany a map which shows the golden-era boundaries accordingly. Berkaysnklf (talk), 24 October 2016, 19:11 (UTC)

Everyone here needs to read WP:OTHERCRAPEXISTS. "Other articles do it too" is an appeal to tradition and not a valid argument. I have yet to see single argument as to why a laundry list of countries would be would useful and what it would add to the article that a map doesn't. Athenean (talk) 04:28, 25 October 2016 (UTC)

I wasn't making an WP:OTHERCRAPEXISTS argument, but correcting your assertion that FAs don't use the "today part of" list. Some FAs do. Whether they do or not I don't think has a bearing on THIS article.--3family6 (Talk to me | See what I have done) 03:58, 26 October 2016 (UTC)

I've encountered two arguments. The first is that a list helps blind readers of the article, whereas a map does not. The second is that a list provides the names of the countries and links to them.

I'd argue that given how misleading a list is (as brought up above), it leaves the reader less informed than they were. Per the WP:Editing policy, "on Wikipedia a lack of content is better than misleading or false content". Consequently, it should be removed.

The only cases where a list would not be misleading I can think of are recent dissolutions (such as the Soviet Union and the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia) where the former countries encompassed the entirety of the current ones. Even then, it's better covered by the "succeeded by" parameter and/or expressed in prose. TompaDompa (talk) 05:20, 25 October 2016 (UTC)

Misleading indeed. The most egregious example being Russia, as the image that this conjures is the immensity of Russia being part of the Ottoman Empire, even though in actuality it was a very small part of Russia and only for a limited time. But the net effect is making the OE appear larger than it really was, which probably explains why some users are so keen on it. Athenean (talk) 05:27, 25 October 2016 (UTC)

I'd argue that a third purpose for the list is for readers who may not be familiar with geography, and so by looking at the map, and the list, they can understand some of the territorial scope of the Empire and it's relation to today's geography. That's not to say that this can't be misleading, such as seems to be happening with this article.--3family6 (Talk to me | See what I have done) 03:58, 26 October 2016 (UTC)

I'm not sure I understand how the list helps any more with that than the map does it on its own. Could you elaborate? TompaDompa (talk) 22:20, 27 October 2016 (UTC)

I have raised the general issue of using this parameter on empires at the Template page. Please comment there. Kanguole 18:41, 29 October 2016 (UTC)

@Athenean: I heavily disagree with Athenean I don't know why you want to corrupt the article based on manufactured standards set by you, we are just following the guidelines of the template given. You try and minimize Turkish related articles, if you look at the template article, it is crucial for having a today part of, and no it's not misleading the reader, if you check the template which includes German Empire as an example it contains a small portion of Western Russia yet Russia is in the today part of, today part never implied it was whole of Russia. Also Byzantine Empire or other FA articles follow their own way of editing and can be influence by the discretion of the editors who didn't object. Nothing says that Today part of is not FA material, isn't enough you have changed Turkish island names to Greek. Come one man please ! 21:40, 3 November 2016 (UTC) Alexis Ivanov (talk) 03:14, 5 November 2016 (UTC)

The new map

File:OttomanEmpire1590.jpg

So I've made a new map to more accurately depict the empire's borders in 1683. This is typically declared to be the date of the empire's "greatest extent." However this is only true for Europe, in the Middle East the empire reached its greatest extent from 1590-1603, when much of western Iran and the Caucasus was conquered and before it was lost again. So now I've made another map for 1590 but I'm unsure what to do with it. We could insert the two maps, one after the other, indicating that one depicts its greatest extent in the Middle East, and the other its greatest extent in Europe. How does that sound? Chamboz (talk) 19:31, 13 October 2016 (UTC)

Good initiative, Chamboz. Two points, though, to keep in mind generally about maps: First, please don't use .jpg. Save the file as a .png or some other lossless format. Better yet, upload it in .svg format so that it can be corrected and/or built upon by others. Second, please reference the sources for the map in its description. Constantine ✍ 08:05, 14 October 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for the tips, I've replaced the maps with .png versions and added a source list. Chamboz (talk) 14:46, 14 October 2016 (UTC)

An excellent job, thanks to you both. Richard Keatinge (talk) 16:19, 14 October 2016 (UTC)

I think the infobox should include only one map. The remaining maps should be inserted in the body text. It is not uncommon for many empire articles to include maps of the empire at several stages. The FA-class Byzantine Empire article contains a multitude of maps, for example. This article should include maps of the Ottoman Empire in the 19th and 20th centuries. Athenean (talk) 02:53, 15 October 2016 (UTC)

Two maps in the infobox is too much, especially since they have small differences and represent a short period of the empire's life. It seems to say: "Look how big it was." Choose one map for the infobox, and then make a proper presentation with maps from the whole timespan of the OE in the main body. --T*U (talk) 20:49, 19 October 2016 (UTC)

I removed one. Dr. K. 21:25, 19 October 2016 (UTC)

The purpose of the map is to show the widest border of the state. These maps are not enough alone. The ottomans could not reach its maximum size in 1683. Not enough alone. If there are maps showing the widest limits should be corrected.--Gündoğdu (talk) 10:24, 20 October 2016 (UTC)

Sure, but the problem is that the "maximum size" in the Middle East, when the empire included Tabriz and part of Iran, lasted only 13 years. For the whole sweep of Ottoman history, it was not really important, and it misleads the readers to pick a map which shows such an extent - especially the old map this page used to use, which classified it as "territory conquered after 1566" implying that it was controlled continually afterwards. The reason I picked 1683 is 1, because that's the typical date maps of this sort pick, and 2, because it allows the inclusion of Crete, which was not controlled by the empire in 1590 but which did remain in the empire for centuries. Chamboz (talk) 13:21, 21 October 2016 (UTC)

@Gündoğdu: You seem to be edit warring in order to change the map in the infobox. As far as I can see, you have so far got no support. Since I do not take part in edit wars, I will not revert your last edit, but I am sure that someone else will do so. Or you could self revert, and then state your reasons for the change you want. If you manage to create a consensus, the map can be changed, if not, it will not be changed. That is how Wikipedia works. --T*U (talk) 10:42, 22 October 2016 (UTC)

The purpose of the map is to show the widest border of the state. Those who have been more appropriate for the map was replaced with a map showing the widest limits. Ottomans was going to misleading maps they reach its maximum size in 1683. The main map must map showing the wide boundaries that have reached the state. Two maps we use can solve together but it's too much. --Gündoğdu (talk) 11:15, 22 October 2016 (UTC)

@Gündoğdu: Actually I disagree with what you say is the purpose of the map. In my opinion, the purpose of the infobox is to give basic information at a glance, and the purpose of the map is to give a quick idea of the extent of the Empire. Too much detailed information should not be cluttered into the infobox, and a map that needs a lot of explanation ("this area was included at that time, while that area was included at another time...") makes the infobox useless. We need to have one map giving the extent in one specific year. And most important: The map has to be as correct as possible. I do not have strong feelings about what year to choose. User:Chamboz has presented good arguments for 1683, but I am quite willing to discuss other years, provided reliable maps can be found or made.

If a more detailed discussion about the maximum extent of the Ottoman Empire is wanted, it should not be squeezed into the infobox, but could be part of a new section in the main body of the article, covering the "rise and fall" (or the growth and shrinking) of the Empire. With relevant maps covering the whole period from 1299 to 1923, this would add useful information to the article (provided the maps are correct).

I am concerned about the way this dispute has been going. There seemed to be a rough consensus for the map provided by Chamboz. The only user who has raised a voice against it, has not been taking much part in the discussion here, but has inserted first one, then another alternative map, edit warring against several editors. I kindly ask User:Gündoğdu to self revert, then to read carefully WP:BRD, and then take part in the discussion here in order to try to come to a consensus. That is how Wikipedia works (or should work). Regards! --T*U (talk) 16:37, 22 October 2016 (UTC)

(If a more detailed discussion about the maximum extent of the Ottoman Empire is wanted, it should not be squeezed into the infobox) I'm sorry but you are wrong. The purpose of the map; the state is the largest show all of its land borders and is dominated. The purpose of it already is and it should be. If you examine the status of the other pages you will see that in this way. for example;

• French colonial empire
• British Empire
• Spanish Empire
• Portuguese Empire
• Mongol Empire
• Achaemenid Empire
• Khazars
• Sasanian Empire
• Gupta Empire
• Ilkhanate
• Italian Empire

It does not have to be the case in a particular year fixed. The purpose is to show the widest border of state. Currently inadequate and misleading map on the home page.--Gündoğdu (talk) 12:00, 29 October 2016 (UTC)

@Chamboz:; The purpose of the map is to show the widest border of the state. Your 1683 map does not provide the necessary conditions. Some places that have dominated the state are missing. Yeah, that's 1683 map but our aim is not to show the 1683. To give an example of a lack of:

• Yemen Eyalet
• Lahsa Eyalet
• Treaty of Constantinople (1590) - Azerbaijan - Armenia - Daghestan - Western Iran. Here they entered the Ottoman domination.

Clearly missing map. you're thinking about how to fix this deficiency.--Gündoğdu (talk) 21:36, 1 November 2016 (UTC)

Yeah, I've been thinking about different ways that I could combine these elements into a single map without misleading the viewer. Any suggestions? Chamboz (talk) 22:03, 1 November 2016 (UTC)

There are maps useful and appropriate. Why you insist on missing a map. As a solution; I think this could be the solution of any one of these maps. I would to get your opinion.--Gündoğdu (talk) 22:13, 1 November 2016 (UTC)

There are precedents for using an animated map (Mongol Empire), using a static map that labels which years specific territories were under the empire's control (Russian Empire), and of course having an anachronous map that includes every territory that was ever a part of the empire (British Empire). They all have drawbacks:

• With an animated map, the reader loses detail because each frame only stays on screen for a short while. If instead each frame is on screen for long enough that the reader gets a chance to take it all in, the animation takes a really long time to get to the end.
• With a labelled map, the reader will have difficulty interpreting the map at a glance. This can be somewhat ameliorated by colorcoding the map.
• With an anachronous map, the reader does not get any chronological information whatsoever, and knows nothing about how the empire looked at any point in time.

TompaDompa (talk) 23:28, 1 November 2016 (UTC)

Well I'm 100% opposed to an anachronous map. Labelled maps are additionally difficult because the Ottoman Empire did not only expand - all of those maps that show X borders in 1453 - Y borders in 1566 - Z borders in 1683 are usually hugely erroneous because they depict the empire as if it were constantly expanding and not also contracting in certain areas. The only solution I've thought up so far is to modify the map for 1683 to show in another color all territories which were once part of the empire, but which no longer were by that date. Frankly I think this whole issue is fairly insignificant - for most of its history, places like Azerbaijan and Yemen were not part of the empire, and it might be better for readers not to come away with the fallacious notion that they were. But I think Gündoğdu is correct in that what readers really want to see is the empire at its greatest extent, which is why the map up there is 1683 to begin with, and not a more "normal" period of Ottoman history, like 1622. It's like the front-page map represents some sort of Platonic ideal of what the Ottoman Empire was, and anything not shown in the map is implied to never have been related to the empire. Chamboz (talk) 23:42, 1 November 2016 (UTC)

I think using a 1683 map, adding all territories that were at some point in time a part of the Empire in a different color (possibly two: one for territories lost before 1683 and one for territories gained after 1683), and marking which years those territories were part of the Empire in text on the map itself (like in the map of the Russian Empire, which has explanatory text such as "Persia 1907–1921") would be a pretty good solution. TompaDompa (talk) 08:59, 2 November 2016 (UTC)

@Chamboz:, I think that we need to fix with a suitable map. What do you recommend we do. it's not wise to use the missing map. Do you have an idea of making a new map ? Do you think it ? There are clearly deficiencies and we currently use this map. The 1600 map may solve the problem.--Gündoğdu (talk) 15:28, 9 November 2016 (UTC)

@Gündoğdu: I made a new one, let me know if you like it. Chamboz (talk) 18:37, 12 November 2016 (UTC)

The map is anachronous and therefore problematic. Western Iran and Yemen were only held very briefly. Saying "territory lost before 1683" does not inform the reader of that, and readers could think that the territory was held for a very long time. Chamboz, there is now way to please Ottoman nostalgists without sacrificing scientific integrity. No map will ever be big enough for these people. I think it's best to just stick with the 1683 map and if some people have a problem with it, too bad. For every empire out there, this is how we do it. Athenean (talk) 21:33, 12 November 2016 (UTC)

@Chamboz: Thank you for your effort, but a different color instead of scanning it would be better if you use. The borders does not appear correctly. Gündoğdu (talk) 11:06, 13 November 2016 (UTC)

The above comment was changed at 18:39, 13 November 2016, after the three following comments. In order to make the comments below comprehenensible, the original comment is repeated here:

@Chamboz: Thank you for your effort, but if you use a solid color would be better. The borders does not appear correctly. Daghestan - Eritrea - Djibouti It does not seem. There won't be a problem if you fix it with a constant color.--Gündoğdu (talk) 11:06, 13 November 2016 (UTC)

--T*U (talk) 08:51, 14 November 2016 (UTC)

Yes, there will be a problem if you "fix it with a constant color", since that would make the map incorrect, giving the false impression of a size that the Empire never had. I think that the former 1683 map is the best solution, but if consensus is reached that the areas lost before 1683 should be in the map, I would suggest that those areas be shown in a different colour altogether in order to emphasize that they were not in the Empire at the same time as the other areas shown. --T*U (talk) 17:05, 13 November 2016 (UTC)

I tend to agree that the original 1683 map is more ideal, I just made this one so it would be an option in case people prefer it. For precedent for not including territory that was only briefly held, one can look to the Habsburg Monarchy page, where Naples, Sicily, Serbia, Oltenia etc. are not indicated in the map at all, which is limited solely to what the Habsburgs ruled in 1789. Chamboz (talk) 17:18, 13 November 2016 (UTC)

I also agree that using the 1683 map is the best solution. Superimposing two different eras on a single map is pointless, OR and confusing, not to mention POV. Dr. K. 17:20, 13 November 2016 (UTC)

Deportation vs. Extermination

Regarding this edit by Chamboz, I think the wording here can easily be misconstrued into a denialist talking point. The Ottoman government's objective was not to merely deport, but to exterminate. To say that the Ottoman government started deportations that lead to a genocide could be misconstrued as a denialist talking point in the sense that people died during deportations rather than being killed. I've even heard some delusional denialists say that the deaths of the Armenians were the fault of the deportees who couldn't handle the deportations. We also know that deportation was not the only way the gendarmes would kill the Armenians. Some were killed on the spot. Others poisoned. Some drowned. etc. etc. Étienne Dolet (talk) 18:33, 20 April 2017 (UTC)

I also don't believe we should single out a set of Armenians when it comes to the AG. This edit makes it appear that ONLY the Armenians in the east were deported/exterminated. However, lots of Armenians were deported in the western part of the country, including places like Izmir, Constantinople, and even as far as Edirne. In fact, the reason why the AG is commemorated on April 24 is because the Armenians of Constantinople were the first ones to be deported (see: Deportation of Armenian intellectuals on 24 April 1915). You'll be surprised how extensive of an operation it was (this website is really insightful when it comes to explaining that). Étienne Dolet (talk) 18:41, 20 April 2017 (UTC)

I'm sympathetic to your perspective, EtienneDolet, but I think part of the problem with the way the whole issue is discussed is that it assumes that there existed a unitary "Ottoman government" in the first place. The government of the Ottoman Empire consisted of many disparate elements, not all of which were working in tandem. This is how it is discussed by Quataert in the standard text on the period (emphasis mine):

In 1915, Ottoman Young Turk ruling circles issued orders for the deportation of the entire Armenian population of east Anatolia out of the battle zone, southward to the Syrian deserts. These orders exist and can be examined and read; they are authentic materials and not forgeries or part of a hoax and are full of directives commanding the protection and care of the deportees and their properties. Order after order speaks of the need to guard the deportees and their property and assure their safety. [...] But, the solicitous state documents notwithstanding, there is abundant evidence that low and high Ottoman officers, soldiers and bureaucrats – the very persons who had the sworn responsibility to defend and protect the lives of all Ottoman subjects regardless of religion or ethnicity – murdered vast numbers of Armenian civilians, men, women, and children alike. [...] How can we reconcile the orders commanding care and diligence with the murderous and apparently coordinated slaughter by state military and civil officials? Consider this assessment of the events, one that seems to be gaining acceptance among scholars on both sides of the controversy. There was a circle, acting like a state within the state, within the ruling Committee of Union and Progress group. Coming to power in early 1913, members of this circle secretly sought to use deportation as a guise for exterminating the Armenians. As World War I developed, they increasingly feared the potential ability of Armenian revolutionary organizations to overthrow the Ottoman state and/or the consequences of mass Armenian defections in east Anatolia to the Russians. Under the leadership of Talat Pasha, a major Union and Progress figure, the group employed the Special Organization (Teşkilat-ı Mahsusa) to carry out the massacres, outside the formal government apparatus and lines of communication. On the evidence presented, it seems plausible that high-ranking officials of the Ottoman state, utilizing the Special Organization, directed a concerted, centrally orchestrated program that murdered massive numbers of Ottoman Armenians.

There obviously was a centralized program of genocide going on, but it wasn't something that the entire government was implicated in. "The Ottoman government" as such didn't order extermination, it just ordered deportations which certain high elements within the government utilized to carry out their own program of extermination. This era had a great deal of complexity to it, and I find myself distressed by the way talking about one unified "Ottoman government" carrying out a program of genocide grants legitimacy to those who would disparage the empire's entire existence or even its whole history. This is a topic which clearly deserves some nuance. Chamboz (talk) 18:48, 20 April 2017 (UTC)

That being said, it must be clarified that the deportation orders and subsequent genocide were largely limited to eastern Anatolia and took place in that context. Obviously it was not completely limited to the east, but it is incorrect to say that the entire Armenian population of the empire was subjected to this treatment. As Bruce Masters writes in the Encyclopedia of the Ottoman Empire:

This episode started in April 1915 during World War I, after the Ottoman suffered a major defeat at the hands of Russia. Ottoman authorities ordered the deportation of Armenians from eastern Anatolia to the Syrian Desert. [...] The order for deportations soon expanded to include the entire Armenian population of the eastern provinces of the Ottoman Empire, perhaps a million people. The area affected included towns in central and southeastern Anatolia that were hundreds of miles from the front lines, a fact that has led many to conclude that Ottoman authorities had embarked on a genocidal policy of “ethnic cleansing” so that no Armenians would remain in eastern or central Anatolia. [...] deportation orders were not extended to Armenian populations in western Anatolian cities such as Izmir, Bursa, or Istanbul.

Chamboz (talk) 19:08, 20 April 2017 (UTC)

First off, I don't doubt you're in good faith here and I appreciate having such a genuine discussion over this. It's a rarity in this topic area these days. I partly get what you mean when it comes to not ALL elements in the government were involved in the deportation and killing. This is true. There were many governors who opposed carrying out massacres (i.e. Mehmet Celal Bey, Hasan Tahsin Uzer, Faik Ali Ozansoy, etc.). And as much as the Armenian Genocide was an organized event, it was also a disorganized event. Random bandits would rape or kill women and children they would find on the street. Thieves would sneak into the tents of deportees and rob them at gunpoint. Some even turned it into a business and bought and sold women as slaves. Indeed, many of these acts were not government directed. These were people who used the vulnerable situation of the Armenians to their advantage and carried out horrific acts along the way. However, I think you're misunderstanding what Quataert is trying to say here. He isn't saying that the Teşkilat-ı Mahsusa was independent from the Ottoman government. That would be an astonishing claim. Instead, he is saying that the Teşkilat-ı Mahsusa was not part of the functions of the central government. In other words, it was outside the structure of the state (I find that to be an odd claim because the Teşkilat-ı Mahsusa was created in 1913 by the Department of War during the Libyan wars, but I won't get into that). However, it was used by central government authorities to execute massacre. In fact, the Interior Ministry was in constant contact with the Teşkilat-ı Mahsusa. Please see my recent expansion of the Armenian Genocide section in the Talaat Pasha article and read the testimony of Hasan Tahsin Uzer. Vehip Pasha also made a similar testimony, as did many others. So there's no denying that although the Teşkilat-ı Mahsusa was far from Constantinople (its headquarters were in Erzurum), it was still supported and directed by central authorities to conduct massacre.

"The Ottoman government" as such didn't order extermination, it just ordered deportations which certain high elements within the government utilized to carry out their own program of extermination. - Now I find this wrong on many levels. For one, it is true that the official narrative of the Ottoman government was that they were merely deporting "certain elements of the Ottoman population" for "security reasons". In fact, the word Armenian doesn't even appear in the official Tehcir directive. So the Ottoman government made it sound as innocent as possible on an official level, but when it came to what was happening behind the scenes, it was a whole different story. While deportations were going on, telegrams were being sent were sent from the official CUP headquarters and even from Talaat Pasha's own house to various governors and agents throughout the Ottoman Empire to conduct massacre and attack the convoys. The Talaat Pasha article explains this well. But just in case, I'll add a testimony from Sivas governor Reshid Akif Pasha who said the following in a speech in parliament:

While humbly occupying my last post in the Cabinet, which barely lasted 25 to 30 days, I became cognizant of some secrets. I came across something strange in this respect. It was this official order for deportation, issued by the notorious Interior Ministry and relayed to the provinces. However, following [the issuance of] this official order, the Central Committee [of Union and Progress] undertook to send an ominous circular order to all points [in the provinces], urging the expediting of the execution of the accursed mission of the brigands. Thereupon, the brigands proceeded to act and the atrocious massacres were the result.

To put it simply: the deportations were a cover for genocide. So on one hand, the central government said it was merely deporting "certain" Ottoman citizens, on the other hand it was sending secret directives to conduct massacre. Often times these telegrams would have instructions to be "destroyed" after being read. However, we do have a lot of testimony from various governors who stated that they received such telegrams from the central government and that they were ordered to destroy such telegrams after being read. Some governors, like the one from Harput, didn't destroy these telegrams but saved them and presented it as evidence during the courts-martial in 1919. I could go on and on when it comes to the central government's role in the genocide, but it's safe to say that the Ottoman government did indeed carry out massacre at a central, provincial, and local level. This is especially true given that the government used it's own instruments of power in order to do so. This whole "official deportation" narrative was a convenient way of denying atrocities as they were taking place in the face of various foreign governments and diplomats, and it is sad that this whole "officially the Ottoman government just wanted to deport the Armenians not kill them" denialist talking point exists still to this day (I'm not saying that that's your talking point, just saying that such a talking point exists).

And regarding this, I daresay that Bruce Masters here is wrong. Who is he anyways? At any rate, I'm not going to argue that that source is not reliable. But what I can say is that Masters is wrong to say that "deportation orders were not extended to Armenian populations in western Anatolian cities such as Izmir, Bursa, or Istanbul." What's strange is that Izmir had deportations, so did Bursa. I understand Istanbul didn't have deportations (besides from the intellectual deportations on April 24, 1915), because that would be suicidal considering how much foreign diplomats were stationed there. But I think Kevorkian's book gives us the best insight into each and every city, town, and village. Pages 556-560 talks about the deportation and massacre of Bursa Armenians in detail. I have the full copy of the book in PDF format. I can e-mail it to you if you'd like. Anyways, I don't think we should apply too much detail into this matter. It's better to simply say the Ottoman government exterminated the Armenian population. Because that's exactly what happened. The Ottoman government, with all its instruments of power, tried to exterminate a group of people based of their Armenian ethnic background. That's the bottomline. Étienne Dolet (talk) 19:56, 20 April 2017 (UTC)

How many times does this need to be rehashed?

Deportation of Armenians from Izmir:

• The Young Turks' Crime Against Humanity: The Armenian Genocide and Ethnic Cleansing in the Ottoman Empire, by Taner Akçam, page 408
• A bridge between cultures: studies on Ottoman and republican Turkey in memory of Ali İhsan Bağiş, by Ali İhsan Bağış, page 169, 177.
• Fall of the Sultanate: The Great War and the End of the Ottoman Empire, 1908*1922, by Ryan Gingeras, page 171.
• The Ottoman Endgame: War, Revolution, and the Making of the Modern Middle East, by Sean McMeekin, page 309.
• A Companion to World War I, ed. John Horne, page 192.

Simple google book search. --Kansas Bear (talk) 00:15, 22 April 2017 (UTC)

@EtienneDolet: Sorry, you're right, I hadn't read your response carefully enough. While I appreciate this well-informed exchange, I don't think it makes a strong policy-based case against that particular edit. I'm not sure if the arguments from primary sources were addressed to Chamboz in their capacity as a professional historian; in my capacity as a WP editor I'm prevented from being swayed by them by WP:PRIMARY. The suggestion that Quataert really meant "the Ottoman government" when he wrote "high-ranking officials of the Ottoman state" involves conjecture which I also can't subscribe to per WP:OR. This isn't a subject I'm normally involved with, but seeing these accumulating changes to long-standing formulations of a sensitive subject is a source of concern, especially since they resulted from casual IP edits. The least we can do is perform a broader review of RSs to help us determine what language would reflect them proportionally per NPOV. As it happens, I've already collected some quotes on this subject earlier, over an argument on a tangentially related article, so I'll expand my review to include a broader sample of sources and present the results here a bit later. Eperoton (talk) 22:44, 24 April 2017 (UTC)

Islamic Imperialism

I notice that a number of recent additions by A.S. Brown are based on Islamic Imperialism by Efraim Karsh. I don't know enough about the subject to evaluate how representative these statements are of mainstream scholarly opinion, but do see that the book has had a harsh reception in academic reviews (see Efraim_Karsh#Islamic_Imperialism) and so I'm concerned that Karsh's personal views may be getting undue weight here. Thoughts? Eperoton (talk) 17:31, 23 April 2017 (UTC)

I'm afraid I can't help you with this specific question due to not being sufficiently knowledgeable about the subject matter, but I would like to point out that if you think it's warranted per WP:FRINGE, you can bring it up at the Fringe theories noticeboard. TompaDompa (talk) 19:00, 23 April 2017 (UTC)

Thanks. I think this talk page is a good forum for the question, since the answer requires domain knowledge. Karsh's book meets RS requirements, so it can be used to source uncontroversial claims. It's only if the statements happen to contradict the broader body of RSs that there's a NPOV issue. Let's see if any knowledgeable contributors watching this page would like to chime in. Eperoton (talk) 19:27, 23 April 2017 (UTC)

Eperoton, thank you for bringing up this issue. A detailed discussion of Islamic Imperialism is not warranted here, but since the subject has been brought up, I will offer my take. The book is published by Yale University Press and at the time Karsh was the head of the Mediterrean Studies at the University College of London, it is qualifies as a RS. Karsh is an Israeli historian whom one may gather votes for the Likud party by the columns he writes in the newspapers, and his book leans towards being an anti-Muslim book. For what is worth, I think there are different interpretations of Islam, just as there are different interpretations of Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism, Hinduism and so on. There are sections of the Bible which talk about how a master should not mistreat a slave, which suggests mistreating a slave is wrong, but slavery itself is ok. There used to be all sorts of mainstream Christian clergymen who used those passages to justify slavery, but that is (thankfully) not the case anymore. I have known and have been friends with Muslims, so I have no sympathy with the "Islam is evil" school of thought. Having said all that much, there are passages in the Koran that one can interpret as justifying violence, and some Muslims do make that interpretation. Karsh's thesis in Islamic Imperialism is that those passages in the Koran have used by various Muslim rulers over the centuries to justify imperialism. I believe that Karsh is aware that is only one possible interpretation of the Koran, as the chapter in Islamic Imperialism on the Crusades notes that Muslim leaders in the 12th century were prepared to accept the Frankish states in the Levant as equals, and at times one Muslim emir would fight with some Frankish ruler against another Muslim emir and Frankish ruler. The willingness of Muslim leaders to accept the Crusading states as equals disproves the thesis that Islam is one long eternal jihad against the West. However, Karsh should have made that point more clearly as times he seems to imply all Islam is imperialistic, which is the source of the negative reviews that Islamic Imperialism generated. Coming to more broader point, there are different interpretations of history out there, so the ideal of a totally objective history is unattainable. There are interpretations that are more objective than others, but the very act of choosing one book as source for being objective than another is in a certain way the violation of the rules around here. For an example, one school has that the Ottoman empire was a tolerant state where different peoples and religions lived together in peace and harmony, and will note the Ottoman state had rest stations to greet visitors to Constantinople, which made accommodations for Christian and Jewish visitors. Another school portrays the Ottoman empire as an intolerant state that oppressed minorities. That's a viewpoint that is very popular in the Balkans. The truth seems to be somewhere in between. Until the 19th century, there was not much nationalism in the Ottoman empire-a sense of Greek nationalism emerged in the late 18th century and Turkish nationalism only emerged in the late 19th century and as late as the First World War, it seems that the majority of Turks regarded as themselves as Muslims who happened to speak Turkish rather than as Turks. The efforts of the CUP regime to create a sense of Turkish nationalism testifies to the lack of Turkish nationalism. As for religion, the Ottoman state was tolerant in that no sense that people could practice their own religion, which explains why so many Spanish Jews fled to the Ottoman empire after they were expelled in 1492. But at the same time, sharia law was the basis of legal system, which says that Christians and Jews are "peoples of the book", who can practice their own religion. But at the same time, Christians and Jews were considered dhimmi, which meant that they had a second-class status. Some of the restrictions were petty like churches and synagogues could not be larger than a mosque, but others were more burdensome like the requirement that dhimmi pay the jizya tax that Muslims were exempt from, and if dhimmi could not pay the jizya that their children were taken with the girls becoming concubines and boys becoming eunuchs or more commonly Janissaries. I feel that a state that imposes religious discrimination with regards to taxation and takes away children from parents who fail to pay the jizya tax cannot be considered tolerant in the modern sense of the term. There are all sorts of different ways of interpreting history. The French historian Fernand Braudel had a view of history that dismissed political and military history as histoire des événements (history of events), which Braudel famously called "foam on the waves" of history. Braudel took the view that was really important was the longue durée, the demographic and environmental history that involved studying long-term changes over the centuries arguing that it was geography, the environment and demography that was really important in history. This is a controversial way of understanding history to say the least, and lot of historians don't like Braudel's way of understandingẩ history and I personally don't share it. Having said that much, I don't see anything wrong about adding the parts from Braudel's book La Méditerranée et le Monde Méditerranéen a l'époque de Philippe II (yes, I have read that 9,000 page book! It took me two years, but I did) relating to the fact that Constantinople was the richest and largest city in Europe in the 16th century as I am planning on doing. Likewise, I don't plan on introducing Karsh's more hostile views about Islam here; I used the section in Islamic Imperialism where Karsh stated that it was Western powers who were saving the Ottoman empire in the mid-19th century, not weakening it. Karsh stated that it was Russia that saved the Ottoman empire from Egypt in 1833, Britain and Austria again save the empire from Egypt in 1840, it was Britain and France who defeated Russia on behalf of the Ottoman Empire during the Crimean war, and it was Britain who championed the Ottomans at the Congress of Berlin in 1878 to overturn the Treaty of San Stefano imposed by Russia. Given the fact that all this is true, I don't see any reason to undo what I wrote here. Karsh's views about Islam at times seem borderline racist to me, but he is useful as a corrective to the "victim" school of history which portrays in one-sided way that the Ottomans as victims of predatory Western powers. The truth lies in between. I don't plan on following Karsh's views in their entirety, but I do find him useful and interesting. Thank you for raising the issue and taking the part to read what I wrote here. The solution suggested above about using Karsh where he concurred with mainstream opinion is quite correct, through was what I was always planning on doing. Cheers!--A.S. Brown (talk) 03:02, 25 April 2017 (UTC)

Thanks, A.S. Brown. I'm not going to comment on your general reflections, but I'm glad to see your cautious approach to Karsh's book, and so far no one has raised a substantive objection to these additions. I have an unrelated request for you: most of your paragraph starting with the words "The British historian Norman Stone suggested" was sourced using an undefined ref. I replaced it with a cn tag. Could you put the correct citation there? Eperoton (talk) 03:25, 25 April 2017 (UTC)

Thank, Eperoton for your reasonable and fair approach. I'll fix the references from Stone's essay tomorrow when the library is open, so I have the essay to the book. Thank you for your time. Cheers!--A.S. Brown (talk) 03:53, 25 April 2017 (UTC)