Talk:Ottoman Empire/Archive 3

message: Who says? Halil İnalcık an interview with İlber Ortaylı in 1996.  İnacık, most important historian about Ottoman Empire. Please read belows:
*H. İnalcık, “The Meaning of Legacy: The Ottoman Case”, Imperial Legacy: The Ottoman Imprint on the Balkans and the Middle East (ed. L.C. Brown), Columbia U.P. New York, 1996. 
*Prf. Salih Özbaran says "Ottoman identity was Rumi (Antolian)" Bir başka Osmanlı kimliği: Rumilik (Turkish).  
....Kayı tribe of Oğuz Turks... It's just a myth not truth there's nothing any info about Ottoman family before 15. century. Or please prove it...
And may be wrong place but ....History of Turkic civilization template... it's just a Pan-Turkist propaganda with state support. Turkoman's history was not equal Ottoman's story just part of it.--Macukali 17:46, 18 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: So you say Osman Ghazi and his father Ertuğrul Ghazi and his grandfather Suleiman Shah were all came from space. What would you say about the Turkish flag standing next to the Suleiman Shah's tomb in Syria? Osman's line is a noble Turkish warrior clan whose members came from Central Asia for the Seljuk attacks on the Byzantine Empire. Deliogul 20:22, 18 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Ottoman Empire was not a Turkish Empire 

message: * There isn't any historical evidence, insciription, chronic, archeological proff or other things about Osman's family. We're confuse mythology with history. Anyway, this article has no reference and Elementary school level. 
There's a lot of myths about Ottoman's origin (All of them 2. centuries or more after Osman):
   * Şükrullah (15. century): Ertugrul Gazi, grandson of Noah (21. generation) and he's root come forum (Oghuz) Gökhan's son Çavuldur
   * Arab historians (15. century) A prince from (Greek) Komnenos family who converted Islam in 12. centurn in Konya 
   * Saadettin (16. century) He says (Oghuz) Gökhan or Gün-Han 
   * Bayati (1481) Kayı tribe and Gün-Han
   * F. Köprülü and Modern historians, Cihan shaha of Black Shepps etc....
Historian Paul Wittek discuss Osman's origin, all of the sil-silnames and other claims in his book (The Rise of the Ottoman Empire, London 1967; for Turkish: Osmanlı İmparatorluğu'nun Doğuşu, Pencere Yayınları,İstanbul 2000 (2. Baskı) 
Probably Kayı origin necessary for political reasons. Just read it!
P.S.: Caber Fort of Syria another myth of our history too. It's folklore not history. (Paul Wittek, p.24) or more info: Ibn Khallikan, 1211-1282 Kitab wafayat al-ayan. Reprint of the ed. published in Paris, 1842-43.Translation of Wafayat al-ayan. --Macukali 09:32, 20 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Myths, ideological lies and real history

message: This article does not mention anything about Shadow theatre, Karagoz, Nasreddin Hoca, Temel, Turkish Coffee, Mewlana rumi's whirling derwishes, nothing about Ottoman sports such as wrestling, cirit. --Kahraman 16:26, 21 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes it lacks the data about the social life. Deliogul 20:22, 18 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  This article is deficient on so many levels 

message: No one blames widespread tabacco use for the decline of the empire, cigarettes kill people, it says so on the stuff. Instead, wiki users are blaming religious people. yeah I know, it's easier than quitting :-) --Kahraman 16:26, 21 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Tabacco 

message: can everybody take a step back please? As far as I can see from the diffs, the basic facts are undisputed, and you are arguing over subtle spin that may be given to the facts; surely a compromise wording may be reached between mature editors. That is, as long as anonymous editors do not keep disrupting the process. Anonymous edit warring is frowned upon; you are very welcome to add content or do cleanup work without logging in, but as soon as you get in a dispute, and decide to pursue the dispute, you should use a single account. For this reason I will help revert anonymous edit-warriors regardless of the merit of their edits: This is a case of beating out a compromise on talk, and not of outnumbering the other party.
BTW, why does History of Turkey need to be a dab page? It seems that History of the Republic of Turkey tries at any cost to avoid mentioning times prior to 1922 (so that anything uncomfortable that may have happened at, say, 1919, does not need to be mentioned). This is highly irregular. Our "History of $COUNTRY" articles usually treat all predecessor states of $COUNTRY. History of Germany treats the Holy Roman Empire, the German Empire and Nazi Germany as well as the Bundesrepublik. Why cannot History of Turkey treat the Ottomans as well as the Republic? Having a separate History of the Republic of Turkey is like having an article History of the Federal Republic of Germany that avoids like the plague mentioning any date preceding 1946. dab (ᛏ) 07:33, 20 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  edit-wars 

message: *1.Ottoman Empire was not a federation-do not make it seem like one
*2.Repaired what he had destroyed during the siege and fall?i guess we are talking about the capital, right...?
*3.Constantinoupolis had already an an advanced supply system for her inhabitants (some months ago, many more things about the extended water-supply system became known, thanks to archaelogy).--Hectorian 01:45, 26 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Some changes in the Millet section 

message: Everyone please reading Halil İnalcık's books ... This article is sick ... —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Sailormercury (talk • contribs) 20:00, 28 April 2006.
:That's a valid point, but please clarify: exactly what is "sick" about the article? —Saposcat 06:41, 26 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Um, pardon me for saying so, but Ottoman imperialism had a lot more to do with its downfall than anything western.
* The Ottoman imperialism can only be a kidergarden play if we compare it with the European type of imperialism. The Ottoman Empire gave many political and social freedoms to the minorities under its control. If you want examples you can look at the historical data about trade relations of the empire with European traders and governments, you will see the king of the imperialism. On the other hand, Turks also know to questionize themselves. The Ottoman Empire didn't take steps for modernization and this was a big mistake but we can't forget about the sick tactics of other world powers in the last times of the Ottoman Empire("last times" because they couldn't do anything to the Turkish Empire when it was at the peak point, the empire was way more powerful from them). With respect, the noble member of the Kayı Tribe, Deliogul 21:45, 13 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  HALİL İNALCIK 

message: This part sounded like a sick joke.
"According to this standard, in the Ottoman Empire non-Muslims were granted cultural and religious freedom, so long as they paid their taxes and showed their loyalty to the sultan."
WTF?!
(HG)This is the reality though... Each Millet was assigned a leader. The leaders were religious, because religion was the way to control the society. In some cases, the Ottoman Sultan actually created a religious leader (see : Armenian Patriarchate in Istanbul which was founded by Mehmet the Conqueror to assign religious leadership to the Ottoman Armenians)to better control the sub-society... They were also given religious, cultural and linguistic freedom. Look at India, people speak English. Look at Africa, people speak Dutch, Portuguese, French, English... Look at South America, people speak Spanish Portuguese.. all Empires in the course of 100-200 years eliminated the cultural, linguistic and religious freedoms and imposed their own on to the locals... In the Ottoman Empire, this was not so, this is why in the end, during the Nationalism movement, the Ottoman Empire broke up into smaller nation-states. Greeks today, being the closest to the Ottoman governmental center, would not be "Greek", "Orthodox" and "Grecophone" had the Ottoman Empire not given them these freedoms. End of Discussion.
:Ottoman Sultan did not really create religious leaders. Armenian Patriarchate in Istanbul was not founded by Mehmet the Conqueror; here merely granted permission for the Armenian Archbishopship to become a Patriarchate and to move from Bursa to Istanbul after the conquest. "Eight years after the conquest of Constantinapolis by Fatih Sultan Mehmet, in 1461, he transformed the West Anatolian Archbishopship into the Patriarchship of Istanbul, by a decree." says Mesrob II, the present Armenian Patriarch in Istanbul. And he thinks "Following the recognition of Gennadios as the Greek Archbishop, the same treatment granted to Hovagim as the Archbishop of all Armenians may perhaps be deemed as urged by the wish to establish a balance between Christian inhabitants" . feyz 04:50 11 July 2006 (UTC)
(HG) feyz: are you arguing against my statement or supporting it? Please take a stance and don't post vague statements.  From what I read, you're supporting what I wrote, except you're not exactly sure whether the Ottomans "created religious leaders". So are you arguing on the semantics of what I wrote? In any case, that's irrelevant. What's relevant is that the Ottomans provided with the subjects with enough religious freedom and wanted to have balance.
: HG: I think your statement about ottoman sultans creating religious leaders is wrong and the example of Fatih founding the Armenian patriarchate is incorrect. He did not found the patriarchate; he gave permission for an already existing Archbishopship to be converted to a patriarchate. And I don't think he really cared about the cultural and religious rights of his subjects; but rather he was trying to revive and populate his new capital - so he had to make it appealling to armenian subjects of the empire. Or maybe he was just trying to keep happy the armenian subjects who were forced to move to istanbul - and yes, Fatih forcefully moved his subjects (not only armenians)from other parts of the empire to Constantinople... 
:And by the way, I don't think I have to take a 'for' or 'against' stance in all my entries. feyz 12:05 17 July 2006 (UTC)
What is the difference between Turkic and Turkish people?? Does Turkish only refers to the language? Or do you call them Turks? It's so confusing. 9693 05:04, 6 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Hi. Turkic refers to Turkic peoples in general, while Turkish is limited to the nation of Turkey (it can mean the Turkish ethnicity or Turkish nationality - i.e. citizens of Turkey). Turkish is the language spoken by ethnic Turks in Turkey, while Turkic peoples speak the various Turkic languages. :-) —Khoikhoi 05:12, 6 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Ottoman Society 

message: The slavery section seems very POV and designed to prove that their was no slavery in the Ottoman empire. If there was no slavery why have the section?! It also makes a number of dubious assertions such as that sharia forbids slavery. Ashmoo 02:39, 16 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: This can help to clarify the slavery section. Since I am not a Ottoman-slavery expert I do not want to do this myself. Reading the section I understand there existed the folowing kinds of slavery: 1 - household slavery, including odalisques. 2 - captives (prisoners of war?) mostly as galley-oarsmen. 3 - rural slavery. 4 - devshirmeh. It would be nice if the article described the extend of all 4 in the Ottoman empire. Also: saying that merchants brought slaves is a bit too friendly for the receiver: slaves were brought because they were bought. 212.123.206.71 13:49, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

text: The current section of Slavery is a CLEAR whitewash of slavery in the Ottoman empire, clearly biased and absolutely unaceptable, furthermore - totally uncyclopaediac 85.138.1.71 09:46, 8 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Slavery section 

message: I have the impression, that this is an article based only on Turkish sources of information. It is showing only the Turkish point of view. Nothing or very little (using a very implicative and disguising wording) is written about the situation of the non-Muslims in the empire. The well-known Ottoman atrocities that shook the civilised world are either not mentioned at all (s. the Bulgarian Horrors in Encyclopaedia Britannica) or if they are mentioned, the tone of the article gets quite implicational (this is the case of the genocide over the Armenians in 1915). Given these HISTORICAL FACTS, the phrase about the tolerant treatment of non-Muslims and the very gentle description of the so-called “blood tax” are simply unacceptable. I wonder why this page is not marked as disputed?
: It's pretty clear that the Ottoman article on wikipaedia is higly manipulated, and you are correct, anything that isn't Turkish material was and is being removed, from Slavery to the Brutal Genocides of Greeks, Kurds, Armenians and other Caucasians. The Slavery section is so mindbogglingly biased it even attempts to blame Turk slavery practices on "Caucasians"! Mindboggling. This article is a stain on Wikipedia - Completely biased and partial.
(HG) See, what you're saying is very biased. Because your grandparents have been brainwashing you with anti-Turkish, anti-Ottoman things to reinforce the "Armenian" cause-de-vivre, now you are coming and trying to change history. 
The Ottoman Empire spans 600 years. It doesn't span 1 lifetime of a human being. It doesn't span 3 generations. If you approximate a person's life expectancy to be 60 years, it would be 10+ generations. 
So now, because in 1915, there is a so-called genocide (which is not proven, and is not factual), you are saying that the Ottoman Empire never treated its non-Muslim subjects properly. This is just ridiculous. What kind of weirdos were these Ottomans then, why did they found the very Armenian Patriarchate? Why did they take the Jews from Spain? To mistreat them? I doubt it. Why do you Speak Armenian? Why are you Orthodox Christian? These are questions you should ask yourself when you want to understand more about how the Ottoman Empire treated its non-Muslim subjects ok? You don't look at 1 event that took place in 1915, and say, the Ottomans were just bad. That's 1/600th of the empire's lifetime btw... 
It is an undisputed and proven fact that the Ottoman Empire treated it's non-Muslim subjects really well, gave them rights(linguistic, religious, cultural), and respected them, and helped them prosper, and those subjects of the Ottoman Empire, eventually become the nations that they've became today. Now, what happened in 1915, or what happened during the Bulgarian events?(which I never heard of), is a totally different chapter of the book. You put a dot in time, and talk about that event within itself, and close your parenthesis. Don't widen your parenthesis to encompass the whole 600 years. 
And stop this bs Armenian propaganda. It is indeed a bit sad that the only thing that identifies Armenians today is the Armenian genocide and nothing else. Oh, sorry, also you can be proud of Cher.
I'm shocked and disgusted... One of Europeans' values is being honest about history, but obviously that's something you can never understand. But if that is your wish, you can keep your head burried in the past and go on with your pathetic "we are totally innocent" ways.
:Be honest about history?! Then Europeans must confess their plans to disintegrate Ottoman country. Armenian problem was not a problem of 1915. It began with the defeat of Ottomans against Russia at 1870s. Russia, then began to revolt Armenian folk at east against Ottomans (as well as balkan folk at west), just to rule the eastern/western Turkey. By the year 1915, balkans were already gone, Russia won again. But they couldn't manage taking east. Even Armenians wore russian soldier uniforms to fight against Ottomans. Anyway, Ottomans repulsed the eastern revolts and blood flew. That was a battle. Armies clashes,as well as village people. Bloodflow didn't end: next step "WW1".. and finally Ottomans were destroyed.. But Armenians attacked again but they were again beaten by the new government. That's another story :) --JohnEmerald 10:56, 8 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  QUO VADIS? 

message: Well, correct me if I'm wrong but as far as I remember the crescent and the star in the late ottoman flag has different proportions than the present-day turkish flag (especially the crescent). The flag which presented here as the "Late ottoman flag" is the exact same one. ombudsee, 13:08, 06 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Late ottoman flag 

message: At the end of the introductory section, it states:
:At the end of the war, the Ottoman government collapsed and the empire was conquered and divided among the victorious powers. Subsequent years saw the declaration of new states from the remnants of the Ottoman Empire. Republic of Turkey, which established in central lands of Empire included Ottoman Dynasty in 150 personae non gratae of Turkey. In 1974, after 50 years, the Grand National Assembly of Turkey granted the right to re-acquire Turkish citizenship to the family descendants, which completed by the head of the family, Ertuğrul Osman V, in 2004.
Huh? I understand the first two sentences, and the start of the third, and then it turns into gibberish. I assumed that this was due to vandalism, but its been like that for at least the last 25 edits. Someone please clean this up. linas 03:39, 12 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Introduction 

message: Much of the article seems to be written within a Eurocentric framework that there was an "East" and a "West" (in fact it explicitly mentions that at one point).  It would make sense to put it instead in a Eurasian framework that properly understands the Ottoman Empire as one of many forces that in the past 2500 years or so have occupied various spaces in that.  An alternative is to discuss the areas to the West in parts of Europe as "Christendom" and the rest of Eurasia as "not Christendom."  But even that seems a bit loaded to me. --Saurav 12:13, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  NPOV 

message: The article makes no reference to Vilayets and neglects the administrative arrangements of the Ottomans! After all, where would an empire be without its administration and the transformation of the Ottoman empire into the 'sick man of Europe' was accompanied by the irreversible fragmentation of its administrative infrastructure. I read that until the 18th century, the Ottoman provinces were divided into 'Egialets' which then became 'Vilâyets'. At least, Evlya Celebi mentions Egialets and we know that later we have Vilayets. Politis 13:40, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Where are the Vilâyets? No administration! 

message: The cuisine section is now too long. I suggest that those interested start a special Ottoman cuisine article (yum, yum) Politis 13:15, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Cuisine 

message: In contrast to many contemporary states, the Ottoman bureaucracy tried to avoid military rule. Although the Ottoman Empire was primarily a military state, its civics and economy did not reflect a policy of aggression. The expansionist policies of the Ottoman Empire did not lead to total war, given the fact that the Ottoman raids in the Balkans were not undertaken with the aim of destruction and booty, but with the goal of Ottoman settlement in the area. [2]
This is clearly very far from reality. The Ottoman Empire was a militaristic state that fought its enemies with extreme brutality and brought devastation to the conquered lands. Power was maintained with terror and violence much more often than with "civics and economy". The Ottoman raids in the Balkans were undertaken with the goal of capturing the rich Christian provinces that had disintegrated into multiple defendless principalities.
:The sentence refered as POV is a referenced sentence, which the extent of that idea is covered under that reference. This author should refer to that text. The root of the argument is total war and after 400 years of ottoman ruling of Balkan people, besides able to come out as unique entities (under condition of total war they were expected to be totally disappeared, ottomans did not even managed to teach them the ottoman language; one should compare it with British rule of India), they managed to raid their own inter-fights. Today their edit wars are going on respective pages. The sentence that author points “Disintegrated into multiple defend less principalities”, is a really a POV of this author not the reality. This author  assumes that these principalities are by product of Ottoman Empire, but not from their own culture. Which is unarguably a false conception on the author’s side. They were not defend less, they waged successful campaigns against ottomans to build their nations, and this fight continue after nearly a century of the empires dissolution. --OttomanReference 15:48, 25 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Rise 

message: My map is a real Ottoman map (1699)
:No, its a nonsense map. siarach 17:15, 31 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes your map is incorrect but we can use it with a detailed upgrade. We may use dark green for directly ruled lands and light green for the indirectly ruled states. For example, for many years the lands beyond Hungary was indirectly ruled by the Ottoman Dynasty. With respect, Deliogul 19:58, 31 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Real Ottoman Map 

message: I think "Ottoman" was not an empire, it was a state. If you say that USA is a "united STATES", Ottoman was more "state" then USA. If you say Ottoman was an empire, then we have to say that "USA Empire". At least, we have to see this: Ottomans didn't do an imperialism like language or religion or culture... See the world, the states for now which were in Ottoman map speak their own language, has their own religion, and culture... What about France? What about England? what about Spain? Italy? They did the real imperialism... Look at the African Nations, they speak French... Look at the Latin America, they speak Spanish... Look at the all over the world where England went, world speaks English... But non of the countries which were in Ottoman frontier speak Ottomanish or Turkish... Just Turkey speaks because it is of Turks...
So what empire?
--85.104.169.51 13:14, 2 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: But it's governed and ruled as an empire, a monarchy. An emperor (which is called a "sultan" here) owns every land every parcel and every soul on his land. He's ruling these lands in the name of his god and he rules on different continents, whites, blacks etc. A "state" is a modern word for this. Western style empires might have spreaded their cultures which ottomans did not. It's Europe you know, civilization, light of knowledge.. Spreading their cultures are the best thing they did in the world. --JohnEmerald 01:30, 3 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Empire or State? 

message: Grammar errors are rampant in this article. The Dissolution section is especially bad. Kaldari 21:42, 29 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  copyediting 

message: The land area mentioned in this article seems like way too much even at the Ottoman Empires greatest extent.  Comapre the 19.9 million km2 stated in this article to modern day Russia which is only 17 million km2, or even the Roman Empire, which included most of the Ottoman territories, 5.9 million km2.
19.9 millions??? This is ridicolous, only adding the PRESENT extension of the countries with ottoman territories in that time we can get a date near the 19 millions, but very far!:
-Algeria: 2.381.740
-Tunisia: 163.610
-Lybia: 1.759.540
-Egypt: 1.001.451
-Sudan: 2.505.810
-Jordan: 92.300
-Israel: 20.770
-Palestine: ?
-Lebanon: 10.400
-Syria: 185.180
-Iraq: 437.072
-Kuwait: 17.820
-Saudi Arabia: 1.960.582
-Yemen: 527.970
-Hungary: 93.030
-Croatia: 56.542
-Serbia: 88.361
-Montenegro: 13.812
-Macedonia: 25.333
-Albania: 28.748
-Greece: 131.940
-Bulgaria: 110.910
-Romania: 238.391
-Moldova: 33.843
-Ukraine: 603.700
-Turkey: 756.768
-Armenia: 29.800
-Azerbaijan: 41.370
-Georgia: 20.460
Total: 13.337.342
So...
-Fco
No-one's come back with an answer on this one. It is noted that the 19.9 million km2 is based on a 1592 estimate, and I wouldn't be surprised if it was inaccurate. I'm going to change this to be "Over 13 million km2 (modern estimate)". Please change it again if you can find a better estimate.
--Merlinme 13:00, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Land Area 

message: Is it actually true that the Ottoman Empire ever extended up to the gates of Vienna, as the preamble to the article currently seems to imply? I know a couple of major battles were fought there, but did the Ottomans really ever control large parts of modern Austria?
--Merlinme 12:42, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I think Gates of Vienna refers to the fact that the Ottoman armies laid siege to Vienna, hence they were at the gates. Personally, I wish they had taken the city and moved to Germany and France. It would have benefited the Rum miliet and the Greek patriarchate who, at the time, were very close to the Porte. Politis 18:44, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  "The gates of Vienna" 

message: I'm a bit confused by the numerous references in the article to the Ottomans being particularly tolerant because of their nomadic roots. I don't really understand where this comes from. I mean, the Huns were nomadic, and I doubt that anyone would have called them "tolerant". 
Implying that nomads in general are tolerant either needs to be backed up with sources, or qualified as to what it actually means in regard to the particular group of nomads from which the Ottomans came, or removed.
--Merlinme 12:47, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Tolerant nomads" 

message: I've quite heavily rewritten the architecture section. It didn't make an awful lot of sense, so I've changed it to say what I think it means. However I'm quite concerned that, not being an expert on the subject, I've taken something which is unclear, and changed it into something which is clearly wrong. I would be very grateful if someone could check it. 
The most obvious thing that needs updating is the date of the tomb, but I've also made quite big assumptions about what influenced what, based on what I thought the original writer meant, and I'd be surprised if there wasn't at least one error in there.
--Merlinme 17:18, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Architecture section needs rewriting 

message: This section has got rather unwieldy, I'm going to cut it down and try to make it easier to read. I think there's too much detail here for an introduction.
--Merlinme 16:16, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Rewriting opening section