State and Economics in the Middle East

The Ottomans

The Ottoman Turks, who emerged as the new leaders in the Middle East in the early 14th century, followed the reign of the Seljuk Turks, who had been overrun by the Mongols and had never fully recovered. These new Turks first emerged in the border regions of the Byzantine Empire, and used that position to consistently vie with the Byzantines for territory and power. The founder of the dynasty, Osman, and his successors expanded the empire, seizing considerable holdings in both Europe and Asia, although there were occasional setbacks (the defeat of the Ottoman army in Ankara, in 1402, led to the suicide of the Sultan). By the reigns of Mehmed I and his son, Murad II, the Ottomans were expanding considerably into the Balkans, having defeated the Serbs, Hungarians, and Greeks. These Ottoman rulers were not known for only their military prowess; they also encouraged literature and the arts, and were sponsors of some of the great poets and writers of the age. In 1451, when Mehmed II came to the throne, the Ottomans were masters of two distinctive empires, one in Anatolia and one in Europe, divided by the holdings of Constantinople and the last remnants of the Byzantine Empire. In 1453, after a siege of 7 weeks, the Turks succeeded in taking the city, marking the end of the Byzantine Empire. The last Byzantine emperor died with his troops, and a new era began in Middle Eastern rule.

The victory of Mehmed II earned him the sobriquet of “the Conqueror” and linked together the Ottomans with their European holdings. The remainder of his reign focused on continuing to expand his holdings, both in Asia and in Europe, and consolidating the power of the empire for his successors. The Ottomans adopted the use of firearms much more readily than their other Islamic counterparts, making it easier for them to defeat the Mamluks and other threats to their dominance. The struggle of the Ottomans against the Shahs of Iran was more than just a battle for physical control of the region; it was also a battle between the sects of Islam, as the Shahs favored Shi’ite faith, while the Ottomans saw themselves as the champions of the Sunnis. The Ottomans were not able to destroy the power of the Shahs, although they were able to limit their power. The Ottomans were far more successful against the Mamluks of Egypt, who fell to the Turks in 1517 and saw the destruction of one of the few rivals to Ottoman power. With the defeat of the Mamluks, and the accession of Suleyman the Magnificent (1520-66), the Ottomans reached the apex of their power.

Suleyman’s reign is one during which the Ottomans’ reputation was secured. The new Sultan was known not only as the Magnificent, but also as “the Law-Giver”, in part because he surrounded himself with specialists in Islamic law who helped more clearly define the law of the Ottomans. He also sponsored great building and other civic projects, making Baghdad and Damascus showplaces to demonstrate the power of the Ottomans. Suleyman is also responsible for transforming Constantinople from a Western city to a Muslim city. He also was known for his significant conquests, against both the Persians and the Western powers; it was during his reign that the Ottomans had significant power over the rulers of Hungary, expanded their navy, and dominated the Mediterranean. Unfortunately, the later part of his reign was marked by dissent among his sons, and Suleyman was forced to execute one of his sons for treason in 1554. Suleyman himself died while besieging a Hungarian fortress; from that point forward, the Ottomans began a slow but steady decline. Suleyman’s son, Selim II, earned the sobriquet “the Drunkard” and was the first of the Ottoman rulers who retired almost completely from any kind of actual decision-making. He set the precedent for his successors to ignore ruling and leave it in the hands of their advisors, a model that would be followed for the next three centuries. In addition to the incompetence of the Sultan, the army corps began to decline as well; the traditional feudal structure began to crumble, and with that, the power of the cavalry (always the purview of the nobility and the gentry) began to fall apart. The Sultans were forced to rely on a larger standing army, which meant more outlay of money by the state, forcing an increase of taxes and seizures of lands. None of these developments would have spelled the end of the Ottomans, but the combination would prove to have deadly consequences.

Part of the reason for the decline was also the increasing power of the Shahs of Iran. Unlike the Mamluks, who had been essentially destroyed by the Turks, the Persian empire had never completely been cowed by the Ottomans. They also, like their Turk counterparts, were willing to take up the use of firearms. With the defeat of the Mongols in the east by the rulers of Russia (the rulers stopped paying tribute in 1480, and defeated the remainders of the Golden Horde under the rule of Ivan the Terrible), the Persians and the Turks faced a new enemy in the east. The Russian rulers, who adopted the title of “tsar” (the Russian derivation of “Caesar”) under the reign of Ivan III, sought to expand their holdings to the south, ideally seeking a warm water port (the most desirable being those on the Black Sea). The dream of all of the Russian tsars from the time of Aleksei Mikhailovich (r. 1645-1676) forward would be control of Constantinople and therefore access to not only the Black Sea but also the Dardanelles. This desire would remain at the top of the list for all Russian rulers (even the Bolsheviks sought access to Constantinople) to the modern day.

Government Administration

While the original rulers of the Muslim state had been the caliphs (who had been empowered with both political and religious authority), this joint power was seen as dangerous to later leaders. In many of the subsequent dynastic groups, the real rulers increasingly become the military commanders, known as Amirs. Administration was spread out among the provinces, with each of the areas commanded by a local authority and all of the commands, in theory, being overseen by the king. Imperial authority, radiating out from the capital to the provinces, became more clear, and while this power was usually associated with the caliphs, it was apparent that the caliphs were seeing their power (at least in terms of politics and military affairs) usurped in favor of the amirs and the kings. While initially the term “sultan” applied only to the Seljuk leaders, in time it came to be used by a wider variety of rulers, and after the fall of the Seljuks two states (the Ottomans and Egypt) were both ruled by sultans, while the Persians were ruled by a shah. After 1517, when the last caliph was sent into exile, the title of caliph was adopted by the sultans as one of their long list of titles; it would remain part of the title of the sultan of the Ottoman Empire until the late 18th century. As mentioned in the last lecture, Wazirs, those advisors who held tremendous power under the reign of the Abbasids, had for centuries dominated control of the bureaucracy, often governing in place of lazy or otherwise disinterested leaders. In the reign of the Seljuk Turks, however, the wazirs saw their power begin to diminish in place of the amirs, who had control over the military and therefore more physical control over aspects of the government. Occasionally a wazir would rise to a military position of power, but more often their positions focused on finances and bureaucracy. One of the major contradictions of the Muslim state remained the issue of the need for a worldly, secular view coupled with the religious attributes of the state. Wazirs helped to bridge those gaps, and were often charged with collection of taxes and tribute, maintenance of financial records, and other financial transactions. From the end of the Abbasid reign to the regime of the Ottomans, very little is known about the finances of the successor states, although there are some things we can determine

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Economics

First of all, clearly, agriculture was the major part of economic activity for all of the regimes. Middle Eastern agriculture depended on the river valleys (Nile, Tigris-Euphrates, etc); those areas which depended on rainwater and other sources for water did not produce high yields comparatively. Crops grown included grains and cereals, legumes, fodder crops, spices, fruits and vegetables, and cash crops (notably oils and papyrus). Tobacco, maize, potatoes and tomatoes were added to the agricultural stable of the Middle East by Portuguese traders in the 16th century. Tea would become significant in some parts of the Middle East, but coffee was far more important. Coffeehouses were major areas of socializing, and they took the place of taverns and pubs in the Islamic world (the consumption of alcoholic beverages did occur, but was by necessity clandestine. Goats were more common than any other domesticated animal, and products from goats (including cheese and yogurt) were commonly used.

Trade and commerce were also important factors; the Prophet had been part of a major trading family, and trade remained a significant part of the economies of virtually all of the Middle Eastern states. Textile production was important, as was the production of books. Luxury goods, such as silks and incense, were tremendously important, and while many of these goods were not used by Muslims themselves (incense, for example, was not used in worship), there was always a demand in the West. Some materials, such as timber, were difficult to come by and had to be imported, making them virtually inaccessible except for the most wealthy members of society. Minerals and metals were mined, and much of the later exploration of the later Islamic groups was driven by the desire for gold. The desire for materials and trade for them led to a system of banking and credit, which was widespread throughout the region. The Qu’ran forbade usury (the lending of money while charging interest), so banking as a means of making a living became a difficult task. While trade was important, it would never become as dominant a force as it did in the West.

Throughout this period, the main means of powering technology and manufacturing was human power, rather than any kind of mechanization; mills, which had such a dramatic impact in the West, were far less common in the Middle Eastern world. Part of the reason for this is probably the lack of raw materials that the western world used to fuel their devices (coal, timber, etc); petroleum was known only through natural seepage, not through the actual drilling for it. This need for human power also drove the Middle Eastern empires to seek out more sources of labor, particularly slaves; however, slaves were difficult to come by, as they had to be infidels captured during a holy war. The drive for slaves became so great that Muslim invaders seized slaves as far north as Ireland and Iceland for sale in Algiers. Because Muslims could not be enslaved, certain areas became off limits after the conversion of the population: Anatolia is one of the most obvious examples of this. Some slaves were brought from Africa, although that trade largely died out when the Europeans began to impede the trade of the Ottomans, among others.