Ottoman Rule

The word ottoman is a historical anglicisation of the name of osman i the founder of the empire and of the ruling house of osman also known as the ottoman dynasty.

Ottoman rule. In its long history the inhabitants and rulers of the city of jerusalem have changed countless times from ancient pagans to biblical israelites to byzantine christians to ottoman muslims. Following the ottoman conquest in 1517 the land was divided into four districts and attached administratively to the province of damascus and ruled from istanbul at the outset of the ottoman era an estimated 1 000 jewish families lived in the country mainly in jerusalem nablus shechem hebron gaza safed tzfat and the villages of galilee the community was comprised of descendants of. The local administrators within the provinces were to maintain a military establishment and to collect taxes. The situation elsewhere in the empire was little better and mahmud tried some reforms himself.

In ottoman turkish the empire was referred to as devlet i ʿalīye yi ʿosmānīye دولت عليه عثمانیه literally the. The sultan s cavalry were allotted land either large allotments or small allotments based on the rank of the. The ottoman empire was founded in the early fourteenth century by osman i a prince of asia minor who began pushing the eastern border of the byzantine empire westward toward constantinople. Under mahmud s rule ottoman power in the balkans was collapsing in the face of russia and nationalism.

After the peak of ottoman rule under süleyman the magnificent in the 16th century the ottoman empire struggled to maintain its bloated bureaucracy and decentralized political structure. The nature of ottoman autocracy however is greatly misunderstood and misinterpreted in the west. The ottomans inherited a rich mixture of political traditions from vastly disparate ethnic groups. The following year famagusta fell after a long siege which ushered in the beginning of more than three centuries of ottoman rule.

These rare pictures depict the final days of 400 years of turkish rule over jerusalem. A turkish invading force landed in cyprus in 1570 and seized nicosia. Ottoman rule of the provinces was characterized by two main functions. Turks mongols persians mesopotamian and of course islam the ottoman state like the turkish mongol and mesopotamian states rested on a principle of absolute authority in the monarch.

The military establishment was feudal in character. Osman s name in turn was the turkish form of the arabic name ʿuthmān عثمان. Obliterating the janissaries bringing in german experts to rebuild the military installing new government officials. Several attempts at reform kept the empire afloat but mostly addressed immediate issues and any success was short lived.

The latin church was suppressed and the orthodox hierarchy restored.