From: hubey@pilot.njin.net (Hubey)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.turkish
Subject: Janissary Organization
Date: 30 Jul 92 19:39:02 GMT
Organization: Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick, N.J.


Stanford Shaw, History of the Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey,
Volume I, Cambridge, 1976.


p. 112

The Dynamics of Ottoman Society and Administration

...The philosophical basis of political organization was analyzed
in the writings of Nizam ul-Mulk and al-Ghazzali, who emphasized
justice and security for subjects. The fifteenth-century Ottoman
chronicler Mustafa Naima presented this view as a "Cycle of
Equity". He pointed out that; (1) There could be no mulk (rule)
or devlet (state) without the military; (2) maintaining the
military required wealth; (3) wealth was garnered from the
subjects; (4) the subjects could prosper only through justice;
(5) without mulk and devlet there could be no justice.  Thus the
production and the exploitation of wealth for purposes of
supporting the ruler and the state and securing justice for the
subjects were expressed as the basis of political organization
and practice.


Accordingly, society was divided into two groups; the large mass
of subjects, whose primary purpose in life was to produce
wealth by engaging in industry, trade, and agriculture and to pay
taxes to the ruler; and a small group of rulers, themselves
neither producing wealth nor paying taxes, but rather acting as
instruments of the sovereign in collecting his revenues and using
them to support him and his family as well as themselves.  The
main purpose of the state was to (1) organize the exploitation of
wealth belonging to the ruler, (2) provide for the expansion and
defense of this wealth, (3) keep order, and (4) promote Islam
while permitting the practice of other religions within the
ruler's dominions. Government was created and administration
organized to carry out these functions, and the army was
entrusted with the defense and expansion of the sources of wealth
as well as the protection of the ruler and the state. To guide
rulers, administrators, and soldiers, as well as subjects in
carrying out their roles in society, the religion of Islam had to
be maintained, protected and promoted. All other functions were
left to the subjects to deal with as they wished through their
own instruments of organization, with the ruler's ultimate duty
being that of ensuring their rights in return for their payment
of taxes and protecting his flock (reaya, or rayas) against all
injustice while leading them along the "straight and narrow path"
of God's will.

The Ruling Class

Those involved in governing of the state, members of the Ruling
Class, were known as the Ottomans (Osmanlilar) because they were
in the service of the ruling dynasty or as military people
(askeri) because of the essentially military nature of their
functions in the first century of the empire. During the first
three centuries of Ottoman rule, the Ruling Class was dominated,
as we have seen, first by the members of the Turkoman families
who created the principalities ruling much of Anatolia following
the decline of the Seljuks; later by the Muslim urban elite as
well as members of the ruling classes of the Byzantine and
classical Islamic empires who flooded into Ottoman service during
the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries as the empire took their
territories; and finally, by those brought into the system
through recruitment in the devshirme and through conversion as
adults.  Regardless of origin, to be a full member of the Ottoman
Ruling Class, an individual had to (1) accept and practice the
religion of Islam and the entire system of thought and action
that was an integral part of it; (2) to be loyal to the sultan
and to the state established to carry out his sovereign duties
and exploit his revenues; (3) know and practice the complicated
systems of customs, behavior, and language forming the Ottoman
way.

Persons lacking these qualifications were considered to belong to
the Subject Class, the protected flock of the sultan. Its members
		  ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
[Raya means flock.]

were able to rise into the Ruling Class by acquiring and
practicing these attributes, while those in the Ruling Class or
their children could and did become rayas by failing to practice
				^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

them.  There was thus a system of social mobility based on the
possession of certain definable and attainable attributes. While
children of existing members of the Ruling Class found it
relatively convenient to acquire the characteristics required to
retain their fathers' social status, this was by no means
automatic. It was accomplished by a long course of study in the
various schools maintained by the Ruling Class to train new
members and by apprenticeship in the departments of government.
Ambition, ability, and good fortune determined who rose in the
Ottoman system.

Recruitment and Training

How did this social mobility take place? Many Ottomans were
themselves children of members of the Ruling Class, but as time
went on even more came from the system of recruitment and
training known as the devshirme. ...The development of the
devshirme into an institution for the periodic levy of Christian
children to fill positions in the palace and administration took
place most likely early in the reign of Bayezit I, with its
general application coming later under Murat II and Mehmet II.

[It shows above when the 'devshirme' started. Janissaries were
a part and result of the devshirme. The law allowing 'devshirme'
to function was abolished in 1638. The last conscription for
the corps (i.e. devshirme) took place sometime in the 1500's.
The Janissary Corps, and the 'slave system' continued since
there were people volunteering for it. The Janissary Corps
was abolished in 1826, when they mutinied for the last time
and large numbers were killed and suppressed.]

Most Christian subjects outside Istanbul were liable to the levy,
with agents going periodically through the provinces,
conscripting the brightest subject youths for service to the
sultan.... Those showing exceptional qualities were put into the
group of novice boys (Acemi oglan) who were trainedas Inner
Service boys (Ic oglan) for the imperial palace. The balance were
sent to Turks (Turk oglanlari) to work for cultivators, mainly in
Anatolia, who gave them physical as well as secular and religious
training to become Muslims and full Ottomans in the military
service of the kapikulu army. The best of the latter, however,
could also subsequently enter the palace service as members of
the Bostanci (gardener) corps, which guarded the gates and cared
for the grounds of the sultan's residences.

The devshirme levy normally was not applied to children in
Istanbul or the other major cities of the empire. Nor were
children of rural craftsmen recruited because of the fear that
this would harm industry and trade.  There is some evidence,
however, that urban Christian and Muslim parents resorted to
bribery or sending their children to the country to assure the
advancement in life that devshirme recruitment could bring. 

[Here it shows that the benefits of the devshirme had already
become known and people were resorting to cheating to get in. By
some date I can't remember (1500s) there was no longer a need
to conscript boys since the sons of Janissaries and others
had already started creeping into the system.]

Jews and Armenians seem to have been excluded entirely, perhaps
because of arrangements made with their 'millet' [nation] leaders
or perhaps simply because most of them lived in towns. Exemptions
were also given to rayas who served the sultan in some special
way--as cultivators of his personal lands, laborers in gold or
silver mines, or guards of major passes and road crossings. The
only Muslims regularly included were those of Bosnia. Most of
them had converted to Islam after the Ottoman conquest and had
particularly requested inclusion of themselves and their
descendants in the devshirme as part of their arrangement with
Mehmet II.  These were grouped together under the name of potor
and sent directly to the palace service rather than the military.

The Ic oglans in the Inner Service of the palace received
schooling to prepare them for service in the highest positions of
the empire. Their work for the sultan took relatively little
time, and the remainder of their days was spent at religious
instruction as well as training in weaponry and calligraphy. All
had to learn how to read and write Arabic, Persian, and Ottoman
Turkish, the Koran and the various Muslim sciences. Specialized
training was provided to prepare them to enter particular
branches of the Ruling Class.  The Ic oglans were given
considerable physical training, emphasizing sports like
wrestling, archery, weight lifting, lance throwing, and
horsemanship.  They were subjected to strict discipline, isolated
from the outside world as well as their families, and cut off
from women under the guard of the white palace eunuchs.  The Ic
oglans were were subjected to a third selection process after
four years of training. Those found most qualified were placed in
the regular palace service, mainly in the sultan's personal
treasury or kitchen, while the rest became officers of the Sipah
or Silahtar battalions of the kapikulu cavalry, subsequently
going on to service as soldiers or administrators in various
parts of the empire.  Most members of the Ruling Class in the
sixteenth century also had their gulam slaves, sometimes acquired
through the devshirme system, sometimes through purchase or
capture in war. They were given similar training and then "freed"
for entry as full members of the Ruling Class or as subjects...

[So apparently some of the slaves bought and educated by the
Turkish well-to-do also became a part of the Ruling class.
It looks like these slaves seemed to be better off than their
cousins who were in reality nothing more than land-bound 
slaves themselves.]


It is easy to decry a system that required separation from one's
family, home and religion for advancement, but the practice
should be evaluated in the context of sixteenth-century
conditions and values. In Ottoman society, as in Europe at the
time, religion was not merely an expression of individual or even
group viewpoints of life and the position of man in relation to
his maker but also a definition of human behavior and position in
all aspects of life. Human beings thought, spoke, acted, carried
on business, married, bought, sold and inherited property, and
died according to customs and practices that accorded with the
dictates of their religions. Religion, therefore, had to be a
part of the process by which the individual's status and position
were changed and the devshirme and gulam systems did no more than
recognize and institutionalize this fact, thus making possible a
fluid social structure in which talented people could rise to
important positions in the service of the sultan.
-- 

	mark	


   hubey@pilot.njin.net                   hubey@apollo.montclair.edu
 ...!rutgers!pilot!hubey                  hubey@logos.montclair.edu
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