The Cambridge History of Turkey: The Later Ottoman Empire 1603-1839, vol. 3, ed. Suraiya Faroqhi, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007.
Reviewed by Murat Cem Menguc

Cambridge University Press is preparing a four-volume set titled The Cambridge History of Turkey, which will cover the history of the Ottoman Empire and the emergence of the modern Turkish Republic. The third volume of this set is the first to be made available and it is titled The Later Ottoman Empire, 1603-1809. The volume is edited by Suraiya Faroqhi, a distinguished scholar of Ottoman studies, whose previous contributions include an entry for the seventeen and eighteen centuries of An Economic and Social History of the Ottoman Empire, 1300-1914 (1994), and her books Approaching Ottoman History (1999) and The Ottoman Empire and the World Around it, 1540s to 1774 (2004). Together with Kate Fleet, she will also edit the second volume of this set.

This third volume brings together most contemporary research on the early modern Ottoman Empire. It is divided into six parts, the first of which is titled “Background”. This part opens with Faroqhi’s introduction, which does not offer a theoretical position or a specific argument, but instead paraphrases what will follow. In fact, it is the following two chapters, “Ecology of the Ottoman lands” by Wolf-Dieter Hütteroth and “Political and diplomatic developments” by Christopher K. Neumann which truly start an analysis.

Hütteroth writes a geographical portrait of the Ottoman domain and describes it as a Mediterranean and sub-Mediterranean ecology, which, by definition, means diversity rather than uniformity. He also argues that during the early modern era, a population movement from the plains to the mountainous regions was observable, from Arabia to Hungary, which interrupted the existing mode of life. In contrast, he writes, western, northern, central and eastern Europe did not experience such discontinuity. A remarkable result of this interruption, Hütteroth concludes, was a decrease in Ottoman central control and an increase in lands for public use. Together, both meant a slow rate of rural progress. Hence, geographical and demographic factors also contributed to the so called ‘Ottoman decline’ (pp. 42-43).

However, neither the editor nor the contributors of this volume favor the term ‘decline’ in an Ottoman context. Neumann’s following chapter, for example, describes the political and diplomatic trends of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries as a transformation. Neumann divides the period into three eras: 1603-1703, 1703-68 and 1768-1838. The first refers to the civil rebellions and the long war with the Habsburg Empire. According to Neumann, this was a time of diplomatic and political instability, with the exception of Murad IV’s reign (1623-1640), who exerted himself as an authoritarian ruler. Similarly, the reign of famous Köprülü family, who had gained control of the imperial affairs following Murad IV’s reign, prolonged the existing relative stability. Nevertheless, he adds, the Ottoman defeat in Vienna in 1683 started an inevitable period of ‘soul searching’ (pp. 52-53).

Between 1703-68, the political elite transformed Ottoman identity. While the Ottoman emperor no longer stood as the individual leader of the jihad at the frontier and instead became a figure-head, a new aristocracy and a clear hierarchy among the educated elite crystallized. The new image of the state authority reflected emerging intellectual and technological influences of the West (aggrandized by the introduction of the printing press and military technologies). Thus, Ottomans were mobilized to transform, or already were transforming along western lines (pp. 53-57).

During the following era of 1768-1838, named “Generations of crisis”, the so-called ‘Eastern Question’ occupied the minds of the new Ottomans as well as their neighbors. Neumann’s definition of the Eastern Question is a discussion made of three central queries; should the Ottoman Empire be controlled; should it be completely annihilated as a framework; or, should it be protected through further reforms? He concludes that all three approaches were at work together, proving that the so-called decline period was in fact an era of desire for modernity and transformation. The problem was that there were numerous modernities at work all at once, and not a uniform reform movement (pp. 60-61).

Thus, in the first part of the volume, Hütteroth and Neumann inform the reader about the ecological, political and diplomatic developments which set the course of later Ottoman history. They describe the Ottoman Empire as a Mediterranean phenomenon, which defies such categories as stagnation or decline but submits to the principles of change and flux, both politically and ecologically. Thus, they replace the term ‘decline’ with ‘transformation’. This emphasis on transition explains why the second part of the volume is titled “An Empire in Transition”.

The section “An Empire in Transition” is designed as a study of early modern Ottoman diplomacy and wars. It opens with Carter Vaughn Findley’s “Political culture and the great households”, which outlines the dynastic and elite structures of hierarchy. In particular, Findley describes the emergence of provincial power centers. She describes these not as an example of Ottoman loss of control in the peripheries but as a pragmatic model developed to accommodate the existing center-periphery relationships. This model, she writes, not only shows the important role of the provincial elite, but also shows that the Ottoman state was willing to compromise its direct presence in the peripheries in return for the support it received from the provincial elite (pp. 65-66). In fact, Findley adds, before eighteenth century, centralization of authority was not a popular idea among the Ottomans. Only after the Crimean (1783) and Egyptian (1798) wars, the Ottomans became unable to accommodate the provincial elite and realized that military reform and re-centralization was an urgent need (pp. 79-80).

In what follows, Virginia H. Aksan’s “War and peace” focuses on the after effects of the above-mentioned military defeats and changing premises of diplomacy and war. Before concluding that it was Mahmud II (1808-1839) who redefined the Ottoman central government as an independent authority, while the previous early modern Ottoman emperors kept re-negotiating the authority of the state over a loose federation, Aksan describes three sets of developments (p. 117). For example, the section titled “Changing techniques” reviews theoretical and technological currents “primarily of continental warfare in a comparative context, including a description of the campaigns which serve as signposts in that regard” (p. 82). The section called “Concepts and tools of diplomacy” lists significant treaties between Ottomans and other powers, and explains the alterations made to diplomatic strategies during the era. Finally, “Political and social effects of military defeat” offers a list of events that led to the nineteenth-century reformist desires to reconstruct the Ottoman Empire “along western European absolutist lines” (p. 82). This chapter establishes military transformation as the main impetus behind the reforms and followed by Linda Darling’s analysis of the economic costs of this transformation.

Darling’s chapter, titled “Public finance: the role of Ottoman center”, first states that during this era, the Ottoman state began to eliminate public recruits and expand its standing army. But, while the public recruits financed themselves, a standing army required state sponsorship. Hence, growing financial-dire during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries was largely due to this military project: “Ottoman central finance department’s primary role changed from supplying the household of the sultan to paying the military forces” (p. 118). Also growing were sporadic increases in taxes, accompanied by a general social discontent. Unfortunately, Darling’s conclusions, which work so well with Aksan’s previous chapter are somewhat lost, because her chapter is cut very short or it could have benefited from one or two tables.

The third part, titled “The Center and the Provinces”, returns to the emphasis on Ottoman transformation. It opens with Dina Rizk Khoury’s “The Ottoman center versus provincial power-holders: an analysis of the historiography”. Khoury argues that while late 20th-century Ottoman historiography described the center-periphery relationship as a uniform phenomenon of Ottoman decline, in the case of Arab provinces, there was a process of becoming an Ottoman that allowed locals from variety of origins to have access to the state resources, as long as they were willing to participate in this process. Khoury argues that, instead of decline, the era can be described as a period of Ottomanization, and this phenomenon was a stabilizing factor in the Arab provinces, as it prolonged the Ottoman presence (pp. 155-56).

Similarly, Fikret Adanır’s “Semi-autonomous provincial forces in the Balkans and Anatolia” points out that, in the past, the emergence of provincial forces was wrongly described as a sign of decline. In fact, he adds, in the European context, the same phenomenon is described as a transformation (p. 157). Decline theory, Adanır states, ignores the fact that a complicated network of provincial mediators was formed due to territorial expansion. Increasing numbers of provincial mediators was an essential political development (p. 158). They endured pressure both from the rulers and locals; while rulers expected the maintenance of the status quo, security and uninterrupted tax flow, locals wanted benefits. The lasting ones were those who were capable of surviving this hardship (p. 163).

Finally, Bruce Masters’ “Semi-autonomous forces in Arab provinces” states that the provincial dynamics also worked in favor of the central Ottoman authority. He describes the Arab provincial elite as belonging to one of the four specific backgrounds, tribal, neo-Mamluk, Ottoman military or local notables (p. 188). Any local move towards independence required these distinct groups to unite, he writes, but: “The local dynasts proved unable to supplant the residual prestige that the House of Osman still retained among its largely Sunni Arab sunjects, or to convince local elites that independence under an indigenous despot’s rule better serve their interests” (p. 189). They were too fragmented among themselves to challenge the Ottoman state seriously.

In the end, the third part collectively suggests that the Ottoman state’s relationship with the provinces during the early modern era was not in decline. The state depended on its religious and historical authority to legitimize its presence in the provinces, while local attempts for independence bore no fruit due to a lack of uniformity. Moreover, invitation of the local nobles to become Ottomans served as a valuable tool. The Ottoman state was not stagnated or declining, but re-arranging its network of control in the provinces, i.e. it was transforming itself.

The fourth part of the volume “Social, Religious and Political Groups”, examines the lives of Ottomans in further detail. Madeline Zilfi’s “The Ottoman ulema” re-defines the term ulema as denoting an exclusive and increasingly privileged group of people. An intense focus on careerism was their main reaction to the changes presented during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, writes Zilfi. This careerism undermined the state sponsored education system (p. 212). Moreover, as overseers of the law, religion and education, the ulema were expected to be the guardians of social stability and Ottoman legitimacy. Instead, they became part of the ruling elite, and thereby ceased functioning as critical intellectuals (p. 224).

Afterwards, Zilfi’s “Muslim women in the early modern era” argues that female subjects of the empire, even in terms of its legal aspects, were less passive than was described by contemporary authors, who themselves were mostly male (p. 227). This chapter is followed by Minna Rozen’s “Ottoman Jews” and Masters’ “Christians in a changing world”. Both chapters suggest that the experiences of these groups were shaped as much by their internal conflicts as through their relationship with the Muslim majority. In particular, Rozen argues that during the eighteenth century, it was “the Jewish community’s success in integrating within the Ottoman order that diminished its ability to contribute something new to the ambient society” (p. 271). Before the Ottoman reforms began, Jewish communities had already lost their potential of becoming distinct political actors (p. 271). Masters, on the other hand, writes that not just the Christian elite but also the laity struggled when their collective identity was put under question due to new changes (p. 279). In the end, both Rozen and Masters’ conclusions are very general and their chapters too short. Rozen’s chapter on the two hundred years of Ottoman Jewish experience is only seventeen pages long. Masters chapter, which treats the period in which the Ottoman state was slowly forced to give all guardianship of the Christian communities to the Orthodox authorities – and dealt a serious blow to the Catholic and Christian identity – is no longer than nine pages.

The fifth part of the book, “Making a living” consists of four chapters, the last three of which are written by Faroqhi. Again, we read that the early modern era was not a period of decline but one of considerable Ottoman control and relevance in terms of domestic economics. Economic attitudes are not attributed to conservative world views or near-sighted Ottoman policies. Instead, the trajectories of a newly emerging economy are underlined. First, Edhem Eldem’s “Capitulations and Western trade” argues that, even though the Ottomans felt threatened by the growing presence of the Western traders in their markets, up until nineteenth century, they had enough leverage to keep their economy their personal affair, and did so through actions ranging from outright resistance to temporary collaboration. Western traders, on the other hand, believed that they had already achieved a degree of domination over Ottoman economy and were partly fooled by their relative success, but, “were not yet equipped with the tools that would allow them to transform their advantages into victory. They saw relations of domination: the relations were there, the domination was not. Patterns of integration had been set, but the integration itself was yet to come” (p. 324). Only after the “massive irruption” of industrialized Britain into the Ottoman market, Ottomans lost their control (p. 325). This chapter is also accompanied by eight pages of tables explaining the subject growing European presence in Ottoman markets, a rare feature in this volume.

Similarly, in the following three chapters, Faroqhi describes the Ottoman economy as a vibrant realm. Titled respectively as “Guildsmen and handicraft producers,” “Declines and revivals in textile production” and “Rural life”, these chapters argue that economic historians who could not assume that the Ottoman market was “an autonomous sphere”, still persist that Ottoman state had dominated production, pricing and profits. She argues that this could not be so, as seen in the case of Ottoman craftsmen. Ottoman state saw the craftsmen as part of the “poor subjects” (reaya fukarası) and the authorities often described them as trouble makers, because they were organized members of strong independent guilds who inserted power into their own markets (pp. 336-37). Also, in the specific case of the textile industry the notion that Ottoman industries lacked vitality does not apply. Even if the production of luxury and semi-luxury goods were affected negatively by European competition, she writes, according to the numbers, eighteenth century domestic textile production was geared towards the domestic market and this market was close to foreign competitors. Finally, via a reference to Fernand Braudel, Faroqhi adds that until the end of eighteenth century, the Ottoman Empire protected its trade routes and “thereby remained a ‘world economy’ in its own right” (p. 375). But, “so much of this textile production disappeared when land became more readily available in the Balkan states after independence, and the tax load was lightened” (p. 375). In the end, peasants preferred self-sufficiency and the eighteenth century market expansion was at least partially a state sponsored phenomenon (p. 375). Faroqhi concludes by bringing in the rural communities in to the picture, concluding with a general depiction of the economic, social and cultural trajectories according to which the vast majority of Ottoman subjects lived their lives.

In short, Eldem and Faroqhi describe the era as a period of considerable economic activity, and Ottoman in essence. They refuse that the Ottomans were at a loss in terms of production. They also challenge the suggestion that the state alone was responsible for economic drive. They describe the Ottomans more or less as the masters of their market, underline the role of small and large players, while echoing the notions of transformation and reform against suggestions of stagnation and decline.

The sixth and final part of the volume, titled “Culture and Arts” wraps up the volume with a discussion of arts, architecture and literature. Cem Behar’s “Ottoman musical tradition” is a fascinating read. Having grown up listening to Turkish classical music, I have always sensed those intriguing contours of the genre by way of intuition, but felt unable to explain it to myself or others in clear words. Behar, in my opinion, does a fabulous job, writing a readable and very interesting theory and history of this musical tradition, which reached its early peak during the seventeenth century (pp. 393-407). Equally competent is Tülay Aratan’s “Arts and architecture”, which is no less than ninety pages long and tracing the themes in Ottoman miniatures, as well as re-configuring early modern Ottoman architectural attitudes. She convincingly argues that the end of classical Ottoman architecture and growing influence of Western elements do not explain the concerns of the period; rather, there is proof that the patrons and architects were motivated by a complex set of desires to accommodate creativity and invention (p. 480). Finally, Hatice Aynur’s “Ottoman literature” closes the volume, with an apology. Due to limits of space, she writes, she will mainly focus on poetry (p. 481). This is also where my critique of the volume begins.

It is my understanding that, compared to prose, seventeenth and eighteenth century Ottoman poetry is a well-studied subject. Existing manuscript collections bear witness to the richness of the prose production during this period, but this tradition still waiting for its day. For example, the early modern era was when Ottoman history writing gained a considerable new momentum. The establishment of the Ottoman chancery, opening of the first Ottoman embassies abroad, and most importantly, the establishment of the first Ottoman official bureau of history all took place during this era. Such events directly influenced the manner in which Katib Çelebi (d. 1675), Hazerfan Hüseyin Efendi (d. 1691) and Mustafa Naima (1655-1716), among many others, composed their Ottoman histories and changed the older versions of Ottoman past and Ottoman identity. This tradition is not at all mentioned in Aynur’s section and only marginally referred in the whole volume (p. 73). I am quite convinced that a similar case can be made regarding political and religious prose as well.

However, the real problem is the argument of having limited space. Why does two hundred years of Ottoman prose, along with Ottoman military finance, Ottoman Jewish experience and Ottoman Christian experience deserve limited attention, whereas visual arts and architecture receive a flamboyant ninety pages escapes me dearly. A four volume set should not suffer from such logistical problems.

A second problem is related to the endless discourse of transformation. This discourse generates a dialectical tone, i.e. it emphasizes an Ottoman becoming rather than a fixed Ottomanness. But, without proper foundations, it also creates what I call post-modern blind spots. Or, I should say, the principle of transformation alone does not serve as a theoretical frame work. Upon picking up a four volume set on Ottoman history, readers may expect something more than an open-ended argument against previous terminologies. Yet, throughout the volume, the theme of transformation comes across as a continuous statement backed by loose arguments. This is in particular due to the absence of a coherent introduction or conclusion.

For example, consider a recent publication by the same press, treating almost exactly the same period, titled The Early Modern Ottomans and edited by Virginia H. Aksana and Daniel Goffman. In my opinion, it explains the period much more successfully. Composed of similar chapters, written by some of the same authors, it depicts the period’s cultural encounters, networks of creative exchange, shifting political attitudes, and most importantly, presents it as a new era of global human experience. In their introduction, the editors conclude that, “In the popularization of politics, in the creation of public gardens, in transformed and more complicated tombstone inscriptions, in the rise of new understandings of historical time, and in new types of military discipline, novel social clusters were participating in Ottoman society in distinctive ways, and contributing to the transformation of the empire in a changing global context” (p. 12). Compare this statement to the last sentence of Faroqhi’s introduction. After stating that, due to the limits of space, several issues were left out of the discussion, she concludes: “The Ottoman Empire in this volume appears a solid land mass, which is true enough but not the whole story: after all, the sultans did, with some justification, claim to reign over both land and sea. Thus, a great deal remains to be done, and some of it will be attempted in the near future, insh’allah” (p. 17). In my opinion, this introduction leaves each chapter and contributor alone in pondering their own questions. Meanwhile, the reader wonders if Faroqhi’s “insh’allah” will ever translate as more than god willing, especially as that good-old Mediterranean phenomenon called Ottoman Empire is left without its global Mediterranean context.

These being said, this volume is an accessible and concise introduction to the early modern Ottoman Empire. It brings together the current research and does so in an organized fashion. Its desire to focus on women, minorities and other marginal identities reflects our newly formed interests and Faroqhi’s personal sensitivities as a leading historian. Similarly, study of the so-called Ottoman peripheries, such as Balkans and Arab provinces, and the light this sheds on our understanding of the so-called Ottoman center is most welcome. There is no question that this volume represents a new era in our understanding of the Ottoman Empire and it will serve as one of the first sources to be consulted on this subject. Its bibliography of the existing literature, chronology of the period and the glossary of the Ottoman terms, will serve generations of specialist and non-specialist readers.