Ottoman History Podcast - Rethinking "Decline" in the Second Ottoman Empire

Episode Date: February 17, 2017

Episode 300 with Baki Tezcan hosted by Susanna Ferguson Download the podcast Feed | iTunes | GooglePlay | SoundCloud Did the Ottoman Empire "decline" after an initial golden age of rapid expansion and military conquest? This question has long haunted the telling of Ottoman history. Critics note that describing centuries of Ottoman history simply as "decline" makes it seem inevitable that the Empire would be defeated in World War I, emptying the story of the contingency and nuance it deserves. How else might we describe the nature of political, economic, and cultural change in the later centuries of the Ottoman Empire? What other questions could we ask? In this episode, Baki Tezcan describes the period he calls the "Second Ottoman Empire," between roughly 1580 and 1826, not as a period of decline but as one of political transformation. His story radically remakes existing narratives about the nature and history of Ottoman political authority and governance and offers an important alternative to the "decline thesis" that has haunted Ottoman history for so long. « Click for More »

Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Ottoman History Podcast. I'm Susie Ferguson. Today we welcome to the podcast Dr. Bakir Tezcan, who is an associate professor in the Department of History at the University of California, Davis. Professor Tezcan, thank you so much for coming on the podcast. We're really happy to have you. Thank you. So the topic of our discussion today will be writing the history of the early modern Ottoman Empire. We'll be drawing from Dr. Tezcan's recent book entitled The Second Ottoman Empire, Political and Social Transformation in the Early Modern World, which was published by Cambridge University in 2010. So the book focuses around this kind of tumultuous period following the death of Ahmed I in 1617

through the regicide or the killing of his son Osman II in 1622. Maybe we could just start by kind of outlining the kind of exceptional events of this period and asking you to tell us what caused all of this tumult and turmoil. Well, even though I wrote a book about it, it's a tricky question to put in two sentences. The reason I focused on that period was that it demonstrated so many of the tensions of early modern times in a very condensed manner. As historians, we do not have a whole lot of chance working at labs, and when we look at narratives of chronicles, we get to have a good picture. But a period like that one, when there are some alternative narratives, where a lot of things are at stake, produces more written record, more angles to observe things from. And so I thought that kind of an intense period

would give me a chance to look at a number of long-term developments. And that's what I tried to do in the book, even though the narrative focus of the book is in those five years with some extensions going back and forth. Those extensions going back and forth are really the things that make the argument stronger. each important moment in that five-year period lends itself to be one of the significant moments in a longer story. So 1617, why does Ahmed I get to be replaced by his brother? So that offers you an opportunity to look into that long development of jurists, etc. So maybe we could just take that moment. I mean, so this is, you know, for those of our listeners who aren't familiar so much with the history of the early modern Ottoman Empire, this is,

you tell us in the book, the first time that a brother is the successor as opposed to a son, right? When Mustafa I replaces Ahmad I on the throne. So what's at stake in that moment? What accounts for this kind of new pattern of succession? It was, in a certain sense, kind of moving in a more orderly direction, the Ottoman succession. It was already there. But this role that was going to be played by a jurist was somewhat unanticipated. So, of course, you're right. I need to think about the whole audience who might be listening to this, some of whom may not know as much about Ottoman succession.

I tend to just get into it, jump into it. So, when we look into the long-term sort of trends in Ottoman succession, what we have is more of an open-ended game at the end of the life of a sultan. We'll make it to the capital first and take the control of the army. It gets to have the throne, so it's kind of a test. Of course, it's not an absolutely fair test because some of the princes are positioned closer to the capital so that when they receive the news of the death of their fathers, they could get there earlier. So it's not a fair game. But it is a game in which if you are a very enterprising prince, you could improve your chances by just sort of taking that initiative as Selim did. He was positioned in a terrible place far up north, but then he moved on it. And this is,

I'm talking about Selim I, who basically ended up taking the position of his father while his father was still alive, right? So we have that kind of a deal in the earlier period, and this is the period that I call the feudal part until 1453, and from 1453 on, the first empire. In that period, everybody has a chance, yet when we come to the middle of the 16th century, during the reign of Suleiman, tense succession issues are moved to the middle of the reign. And so Suleiman ends up killing his son. Then two of his sons are having a big fight while Suleiman is alive. One of them takes refuge in Safavid, Persia. So all of this led, I guess, the Ottoman establishment

to consider, you know, is that such a good idea if sending them out is going to cause so much trouble? So by the time of Suleyman, it is already assumed that sons will succeed fathers. And this is why that there's a conflict between the two sons. That's right. Oh, yes. Again, you're right. I should just briefly explain every time a son comes to throne, kills all of his brothers. So the succession of a brother is not really ever a question. There are some brothers who survived in faraway places in taking refuge in Europe or Byzantine Empire in early period, but they never make it. So you attribute this kind of unusual situation then where the brother of Ahmed I, rather than the son, ends up becoming his successor in 1617 to the influence of the

Grand Mufti, right, to this figure Sa'd ad-Din Azad. So maybe you could just tell us, you know, what is the significance of Sa'd ad-Din Azad's role? And how does he actually get the power to become kind of a kingmaker in a sense? Yes, I suggest in the book that we observe the development of jurists' law as a major political force in the 16th century, and with it, the empowerment of the jurists in the Ottoman polity, especially the ones who occupy the very top positions of the judiciary, so that these are Sheikh al-Islam, the Grand Mufti, the Mufti of Istanbul, and then the senior justice of the European provinces, Rumeli Kadaskiri, and the senior justice of the Asian and African provinces, Anadolu Kadaskiri. These gentlemen are very, very powerful. Two of them have positions in the imperial council, and the Grand Mufti is consulted on various issues with his legal opinion. Right. So this is one of the kind of things that for you distinguishes this period, right, from 1580 to 1836 that you call the second empire from what came before is the rise in the power of the jurists.

So maybe you could tell us a little bit about why it is that they become more powerful in Ottoman politics. While their rise to sort of political effect and influence is in the Second Empire indeed, the development takes place earlier. The development obviously takes place earlier with people like Abu Suud, who basically creates a kind of a deal with the monarchy in return for providing a great deal of legitimacy. They secure a certain degree of autonomy. Of course, the degree of the autonomy is always negotiable,

and it's a tension that goes back and forth. But when we look at how they're able to sustain their position, especially the families, it's very clear that the top-ranking jurists have a lot of privileges. Now, we have to think for a moment. jurists have a lot of privileges. Now we have to think for a moment, we have this tradition of if a vizier dies and his property is regarded more or less the emperor's property, what I'm talking about is the basically public, sometimes auction even, of the goods that belong to a slave of the sultan when we look at the viziers of course not everything not all the properties are always taken over some is being

kept but in the case of the jurists we never see that because they are not slaves of the sultan so they control their own property they are yes they are free So they control their own property. They are, yes, they are free subjects. They have their own property and they invest in this property. Actually, they actually even invest in trade relations. There is evidence suggesting that. And as they go up, their sons have a very good chance of getting into the hierarchy from a place that would position them for future success. And that's why we have a number of families who sort of produce Shaykh al-Islam for multiple generations. So that development is not necessarily taking place in the Second Empire. That development is taking place in the 16th century gradually

but it produces something like uh asad uh someone like asad in 1617 so asad himself comes from a family just like this uh his father had been a tutor to Prince Murad, who became Murad III. And then he also got that title during the reign of Mehmed III. He became Shaykh al-Islam. So he was one of these lords of the law who was able to put his sons into strong positions while he was himself alive. So, for instance, Assad's brother was a Shaykh al-Islam, and when he died, Assad became Shaykh al-Islam. He had this tradition of, in his family, judicial power.

Right. So what you're describing is the rise of kind of alternative lineages of power and wealth, basically, that function alongside the sultan but aren't directly controlled by him. So this is part of how we should understand the rise of the jurists. That is right. That is right. And there were moments at which Assad was very adamant about even putting a limit to what the royal family could do. I think I provide a few examples of this in an article. There's a moment where there's a case where he's acting against the will of the queen mother.

And then, of course, there's the famous moment where during the reign of Osman II, And then, of course, there's the famous moment where during the reign of Osman II, Osman would like to get a legal opinion to legitimize the potential murder of his brother. And he doesn't give that legal opinion. So he is a man who is just right for that moment. I guess not every man would do necessarily the same thing. So that is perhaps an important side note there. Yes, there are developments, structural developments, that created this context in which somebody could do this. But he also seizes the day.

But still, you need somebody who can act responsibly and who is aware of his power to make that happen. So he was the one who, in 1617, was consulted when Ahmed I died. So what should we do? And it looks like he is the one who pushed for the succession of Mustafa as the elder prince, who was the brother of Ahmed, son of Mehmed III, and who was left alive during the reign of Mustafa as the elder prince, who was the brother of Ahmed, son of Mehmed III, and who was left alive during the reign of Ahmed because Ahmed came to throne before he was even circumcised. That sort of was one of the funny moments in Ottoman history. His circumcision took place after he was enthroned. He was so young. His father, Mehmed the Terrible, died rather prematurely.

So there are a number of things that are related to contingencies, but then there is that longer development of the rise of the jurists, and then the contingency of a young prince and the longer development that creates position, a situation where a powerful jurist could do something important, get together in Assad's moment in 1617. Can I ask you then, in the book you use a term which, you know, I'm interested to hear if other readers have found this kind of interesting or controversial, but you use the term proto-democratization, right, to characterize, you know, the second empire from 1580 to the beginning of the 19th century, and particularly this moment between 1617 and 1622. So I'm curious

to know if part of what you mean by proto-democratization is the kind of entrance into the sort of halls and discussions of power of men like the jurists, the lords of the law? You can look at it that way, but that is not what I had actually meant when I used that term. What I had in mind more had to do with the men who entered the administrative ruling class rather than the jurists. So here's the thing. Jurists have a long history in the world of Islam, in the region we came to call the Middle East and North Africa today, to have a lot of social prestige.

prestige. The difference in 16th century is perhaps that they get much more directly involved in dynastic affairs. And that is what perhaps distinguishes the Ottoman case, because in the Memluk case, when we look, there are all kinds of succession issues that emerge, but we don't get to see legal opinions in favor of one or the other as much. Yet when we come to the Ottoman 16th century, we get to see the jurists involved. So what I have with the proto-democratization in mind are more people who make it into the rank of viziers, into the rank of governors during the Second Empire and where they come from, as opposed to the First Empire when they came from the ranks of the slaves of the Sultan. So this is a great segue, actually, because I wanted to ask you, I mean, one of the other things that you tell us distinguishes this period of the Second Empire, you know, starting after 1580, is this kind of the transformation or the emergence of what you call a market society.

And that this is part of the transformations that brings a new kind of person into a kind of administrative, you know, mediating class or even bourgeoisie. So maybe you could describe for us. I mean, what I suggest in the book is the market society, the development of a gradually, the gradual development of a market society, the gradual development of monetarization is really the key to understand also the increasing significance of jurist law, of jurist law as it sort of needs more of a unified legal structure that is well experienced in commercial transactions. And the market sort of question, the market issue is also very important to underline in understanding the sort of jurist law and how it became not just politically significant but economically significant too. I mean, you have Abu Suud, for instance, basically legitimizing the use of interest in the context of cash waqf, right?

So the jurist law came from that context as well. That's why it is for me a little tricky to explain the book's arguments. I think there are multiple layers that I try to lay out in the book, starting from economic developments that produce certain social changes, and then those social changes get to be reflected in the political structure. So maybe we could ask, I mean, you know, one of the things that struck me about the book is that, you know, the Ottoman Empire often gets written into economic, sort of global economic histories as a kind of backwater, right? I mean, that, you know, up until the 19th century, it was sort of behind and it didn't develop the kinds of things, you know, this is sort of the way, you know, some sort of what we now consider old fashioned explanations have it right. And then in the 19th century, it gets brought in as a kind of periphery to a global economic boom. But what you're describing here is in the 16th century, the growth of a, you know,

a capitalized, what you're calling a market society that's actually not only changing and vibrant, but has huge impacts in terms of the kinds of social and political life that it makes possible. So could you just tell us, I mean, a very basic level, what are the changes that constitute a market society in the 16th century? I would qualify that by sort of gradual development of a market society because it is not at the same pace all over the empire. Certain parts are much more monetarized than others. But there is no question that we are in a gradually more monetized economy in the 16th century than we were in the 15th century. And that development is there to be seen even in tax records, sort of like how the empire collected its taxes in the 15th century.

It was more service and produce oriented, but those taxes were then gradually converted to cash. And that tells you just by itself that there is more of a cash economy growing. And that, to me, underlines a lot of the developments that happen in 16th century. That is why I prioritize talking about the feudal kingdom first, when I give sort of a political history of the empire, to talk about the early conquests and the feudal relations, the significance of the Qanun, which is related to feudal customs, and how in 16th century we are in a different world. Now we have Sharia, we have monetary economy, we have commercial transactions, and clearly there are new actors.

And what I mean with the proto-democratization is basically how these actors sort of moved from being economic and financial actors to becoming political actors. And I guess you can think about this also in terms of if we were to talk about this in Ottoman terms, how Ajnabi, the outsiders, became insiders. In the early period, in the late 15th and 16th century period, we have the slaves of the Sultan ruling class, and that ruling class refers to And that ruling class refers to Muslims of peasant background or Muslims of city background who do not belong to their class as outsiders, ajnabi. And yet, when we come to the 17th century, the ajnabi have become now insiders. So maybe you could tell us a little bit more or give us an example of how these kind of changes in the economy, represented by monetization, you know, that we can see in the tax records, produce new social actors who then become politically significant. I mean, can we think of maybe an example of someone who epitomizes that trajectory and how it works? The story that I tell in the book about Baqib Pasha relating a moment in Edirne taking place at a tavern

where it makes Cezada Ahmed, who is at that moment not yet what he became. That story is a good anecdote to tell this because in that story you see four or five so-called soldiers, but they have nothing to do with really anything to do with what you would call military. They all have sort of connections to trade or endowments, and they are not sons necessarily of other former devshirme. One of them is the son of a baker. The other one is the son of a merchant. And these guys sort of get into contracts, tax collection contracts,

become good, experienced tax collectors, then eventually become financial administrators, eventually financial ministers, and at times, viziers. Ahmed Pasha even holds the deputy grand vizierate. So examples of that type give us a good opportunity to observe how people who have experience with dealing with money in the marketplace end up coming to power in the political court. In the court, which the positions that had been occupied by people who had been taken up in the devshirme, right? And by, you know, sort of, as you call them, the slaves of the sultan.

Yes. So this is a real kind of transition in who are the actors who are engaged in political power in the court. Yes. And I should also make it clear, though, the Devshirme origin viziers also engaged in commercial transactions. However, they did not grow from sort of the ranks of commercial transactions into viziers, but rather they used their position as viziers to invest. What we see with the likes of Baki Pasha are people who are from the sort of middle class, upper middle class, socioeconomically, using their financial skills to enter the ruling

class. That is what I call proto-democratization. And it has to be understood in a very sort of limited fashion in the sense that it is not necessarily an expansion of the ruling class to everybody. It is an expansion of the ruling class to those who do have economic skills, financial skills, and who are in a good position to use those skills. Right. It's a relative expansion. So it strikes me that this brings us then to another sort of piece of the transition or the change of the 16th century that you get in the book, which I think is a really important intervention, which is a kind of rereading of the story of the 16th century that you get in the book, which I think is a really important intervention, which is a kind of rereading of the story of the Janissaries, right?

And so I'm wondering how similar what's happening with the Janissary, the sort of military corps in the 16th century, is to what's happening with the administrative body or the body of the court. I should take this as a moment of acknowledgement, because a lot of the things I said I did in the book are things that I built upon other people's works. So this is a good moment of that acknowledgement, because really, the historian who brought Janissaries to our attention in this particular context was the late Donald Quatert, but much more so Jamal Kafadar. So I was very much influenced by his very creative sort of look at the Janissaries. sort of look at the Janissaries.

When I was a graduate student, one of his seminar or a presentation that he made, I eventually pursued him to publish in a festival that I was co-editing, and it got published, but he had actually given that talk much earlier, and I had found a sort of script of it, and reading that sort of had opened my eyes to thinking about Janus series. Whether or not what I ended up saying would exactly be

approved by Professor Kafadar, I definitely owe my sort of interest in the Janusaries to his work. So what I suggest about the Janissaries is, just like you have the examples of the type, like I think Jazad Ahmed Pasha, who made it all the way into the Grand Viserate, on a sort of lower middle and middle class level, you have the Janissaries. And some of them actually make higher. For instance, Baki Pasha at some point was a Janissary. But what we see in 16th century is people who are involved in trade, crafts, find their way into the Janissary Corps by using connections, by basically bribing officers.

And in a sense, the outsiders, the people who are called outsiders, infiltrate the insiders. And it becomes sort of almost a rule. The numbers start increasing, and it's very clear that it is coming through this because the numbers of the Ajemian, the Janissary cadets, they are not increasing at the same pace. So clearly the infiltration is coming not from the Devshirme, it's coming from non-Devshirme sources, And a lot of them have to do with trades because we have anecdotes in various narrative histories talking about how these guys are merchants,

these guys are selling vegetables, or these guys are craftsmen, etc. So this is the other side of the proto-democratization, which is sort of lower and middle classes entering a part of the Ottoman sort of ruling class that was meant to fight wars, protect the sultan. And so in a sense, the society comes to own part of its state. So in that sense, this is another level at which we can see the proto-democratization. So I guess this brings me, you know, one of the things that I really appreciate about the book as somebody who has had to, you know, talk to undergraduates about the kind of trajectory of Ottoman history, starting from, you know,th century, going through the 19th century, what's been very difficult for me is to think of a narrative

that is possible to give in place of the sort of older standard narrative of decline. And this is something that it seemed to me that part of what this book is about is to try to give us another way to tell the story of Ottoman history, another kind of narrative arc to replace the decline paradigm. So I'm wondering if you could just tell us, maybe recap quickly what the decline paradigm is for you, and then how this book can give us a new way to talk about the trajectory of Ottoman history and maybe a new way to teach it? That's a very good question. And actually, that is exactly precisely what I had in mind while I was writing the book. I just wanted to suggest an alternative, a positive statement about the period rather

than a combination of negative statements. And here's what I mean. The decline paradigm that we might summarize as starting from the aftermath of the reign of Suleiman the Magnificent, the Ottomans entered a period of sort of continual failures in all kinds of areas, starting from versaltans to military weakness that eventually led to territorial losses and also economic disengagement and you name it. And this paradigm, I mean, it is kind of now too repetitive to keep saying, yes, we didn't decline. But yes, several scholars starting from 70s actually going back, or maybe even earlier, pointed out that there were things in this paradigm that were just wrong. And we reached, I think, in early 2000s,

the point where pretty much every Ottoman historian was very well convinced that this was not working. And it actually, some of us called it a myth. It became a myth. At that moment in time, my frustration as a graduate student was sort of, yes, it wasn't decline, but what was it? How could we come up with something that would actually be useful, that would replace the narrative of decline with something else? Yes, there was a lot of talk about transformation and i appreciate that very

much i i actually read uh quite a bit of it and used quite a bit of it as well but transformation was such a vague concept as to from which from what to what i wanted to put something a little bit more positive out there something that could offer uh the way I put it in various talks in Turkey, offer a frame of a house. And then I hoped that other scholars in the future or graduate students could maybe, if they like to, use this frame to put other things into that house, maybe build another floor, maybe have a balcony and put a living room arrangement. So develop it so that it could become something useful, a structure that could host more debates, more scholarship. That's exactly what I had in mind, the way I sort of visioned the book. So maybe you could tell us then, and obviously we will include a bibliography

and we encourage our listeners to read the book to get the full kind of sense of what this frame could look like. But we've discussed a few aspects of it here. For example, this notion of proto-democratization, the sort of coming of a market society, transformations in the nature of succession and in the sort of cast of characters

who are making policy decisions in the empire. I mean, so maybe you could just sort of sum up for us what is the alternative frame, right? So if I'm going to give a lecture, God forbid, to, you know, several hundred undergrads, and I need to have a positive narrative about the history of the early modern Ottoman Empire. What does it look like? The way I would put it in that sense would be to sort of integrate it with other global developments, and I think the best way to integrate it with other global developments would be to emphasize how the outsiders became insiders. So how people who were regarded as subjects found ways of entering the ruling class. Again, I should underline the fact that this does not mean anybody who wanted to enter the ruling class could enter.

It was still very much class-based. It was your socioeconomic class and position that helped you get into the ruling class. But from a time in which the rulers picked their servants from among the Christian subjects in the Balkans and Caucasus as boys and then educated them and created a slave class to a moment where you have merchants and financial investors becoming rulers or people who are enterprising. Some of these people were enterprising in what we might call security industry,

like SEC bonds, the people who were in the provinces helping governors in various political competitions. So these people coming to power, I think, and joining the ruling class is one that should be emphasized most. Because that is, I think, a narrative that shows there is mobility in predominantly Muslim societies. There is a connection between the ruling class and the ruled in predominantly Muslim societies. And there is a possibility of taking part in defining your future, having a say-so in your faith in predominantly Muslim societies. I think that is, to me, the most significant part of the book. It is narrating a story of potential empowerment of those who did not have a chance to take part in the political process.

Right. And it seems to me that, just to go back to what you were saying, that this situates the Ottoman story in a broader story, in a, you know, I don't want to more possibilities, though not endless possibilities, for social mobility. So it's, you know, part of what I understand from what you're saying is that, you know, this is to place the Ottoman case in that same kind of narrative in a way. Yes, basically, that is exactly right. kind of narrative in a way. Yes, basically that is exactly right. I was very much sort of surprised to find out, you know, the list of many depositions and regicides and everything, it was a matter as sort of, these were examples of how decline was taking place in the Ottoman Empire. But over in England or France, when such things happened, they were sort of how decline was taking place in the Ottoman Empire. But over in England or France, when such things happened,

they were sort of important moments in the development of limited monarchy. My colleagues, Mehmet Kalpakli and Walter Andrews, had put this in writing a few years before my book, sort of asking this question. They were saying, we are literary historians, so we're not going to make any big comments on this, but non-literary historians should figure this out. Why is it decline over there and it is great over in the other place? And it was Sheriff Mardin also who had sort of suggested, when you look at the development of limited monarchy and sort of

more emancipatory discourse in Europe, if you look at it, it's very, very detailed. You might perceive it also as a series of rebellions and intrigues and this and that is also what you make of that, right? So why not make, why not try to see whether or not you can make something similar out of the main regicides and rebellions that take place in the Ottoman Empire. That was my initial sort of inspiration in the book, and I mentioned that in the introduction. I think I should acknowledge again Sheref Mardin there. I should acknowledge Mehmet Kalpaklı and Walter Andrews. And of course, I need to acknowledge most and foremost perhaps Rafat Ebulhac,

who was a visiting professor for a year at Princeton when I was a graduate student. And he had some formative impact on the way I thought about Ottoman history. So we will include a bibliography for our listeners that will include all these works in case you want to read more. I just want to finish by asking, I think that this rewriting of the decline thesis is really a huge contribution, both to the scholarship and to, as I said, those of us who have to teach it, right? Because actually to have some kind of positive narrative

rather than just to tell our students, well, it wasn't decline, and then that's a sort of unsatisfying narrative arc in a way is really important. I wanted to finish by asking you, you know, at the end of the day, of course, and you mentioned this in your conclusion, you know, we come to 1922, right? And that I have the quote here, you note, and I'm quoting again from the book, seeds of the collapse of the Ottoman Empire must have been sown before 1922. And so if the seeds are not, as we might have been led to believe, you know, in a much earlier era in the scholarship,

in the kind of, you know, stagnation and despotism of the early modern Ottoman Empire, which the decline thesis might have had us believe, how then does your rewriting of early modern history change the kinds of stories that we need to tell about the 19th century? Well, I should preface by saying that I did not do as much research in 19th century history as I did in 16th and 17th centuries. So whatever I say should be taken with a grain of salt. But I think there are two things I would probably like to say.

One concerns what happened in the 19th century in terms of contributing to the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. And the other one actually concerns with some of the dynamics of the Second Empire. So the first thing is something I already mentioned in the book. The 19th century developments go back to a series of sultans and grand viziers who aspire to more central power. And in the name of securing that central power, more major, major bulwarks against sort of absolutist intentions are taken down. So you get rid of the Janissaries in 1826,

are taken down. So you get rid of the Janissaries in 1826, and then the ulama is disempowered gradually throughout the rest of the 19th century. So in those terms, there is an empowerment of autocratic tendencies. That, I think, is an important process that we should keep in mind when we are thinking about, and this is only part of the picture. Now we also have to add to this Ali Ayyoglu's work. I only briefly mentioned the role of the Ayaan and how they are also part of

the picture of the Second Ottoman Empire in the provinces, in the provincial administration. And how, in the 19th century, those Ayaan are also getting displaced by Mahmud II and others later. And how those, the displacement of the intermediary structures between society and state, produce a legitimacy crisis, produce a lot of frustration and dissatisfaction in the eyes of many. For instance, the loss of Greece to the empire had a lot to do with the fact that Tabed el-Ali Pasha was eliminated by the sultan.

So such things taking place definitely contributed, I think, to the collapse of the empire. And another thing I mention in the book is how Islam became a collective identity in effect, in effect, and that changed the way in which Christians and Jews were regarded by some in the society. And so when you face 19th century nationalism, and if you are still looking at Christians and Jews as, you know, well, less than equal subjects, it would not work. So there are a number of 19th century developments that actually bring about the collapse. So you can look for a whole lot right there. But it would be wrong, however, to put everything in the 19th century.

And that is sort of because, as my colleague, he used to be right here in Davis, now he's at Virginia, Alan Taylor, a great American historian. As he nicely puts it, good history is about building the tension between teleology and contingency. We cannot push too much on the side of teleology, write history as if it was all clear that was going to happen. But on the other hand, we cannot also ignore long-term developments. So in that particular sense, I think the Second Empire did have an impact in the longer term to what became in the 19th century. And those are things that I am right now sort of thinking a lot about. And I am more focused on what the jurists and what the educators of the empire were doing in terms of sort of sciences, were they just becoming a little too legalistic?

This is one set of questions. Another set of questions one could ask would be related to military reform because one of the major sort of reasons that eventually brought about the collapse of the empire was the relative weakness of the Ottomans toward Russians, which actually sort of happened in the 18th century. So those two issues, the military technology, military issues vis-à-vis Russia, the military technology, military issues vis-à-vis Russia, and sort of the stance of the jurists in the madrassas in terms of being very conservative about their sphere,

that is, knowledge, which I believe led to a certain degree of closing of imaginative borders in minds. And those two things, military and scientific, are things that have to be seen as issues, problematic issues within the Second Empire period that impacted the 19th century. So that's a really nice way to finish the episode, I think, which is that you're sort of reminding us of the kind of overlapping temporalities

that one has to take into account when dealing with something like the narrative arc of Ottoman history. That it's not that 1922 was simply a result of contingent decisions in the preceding 10 or 20 or 50 years, but it's also not that, you know, the decline thesis and the notion that, you know, Ottoman governance and military might was on a theological downswing after the reign of Suleyman, that neither of these are satisfying arguments. after the reign of Suleiman, that neither of these are satisfying arguments and that in a way, you know,

what good historical work does is to tease out the different moments and the different temporalities and the different kind of causal explanations. So we look forward to your, what I understand is upcoming work on, you know, these characteristics of the early modern period

and how they may have impacted later developments. And I just want to thank you so much for coming on the podcast. Oh, thank you. So for our listeners who want to find out more, I encourage you to pick up a copy of Bucky's book, The Second Ottoman Empire, Political and Social Transformation in the Early Modern World, published by Cambridge University Press in 2010. We'll also post a bibliography for this episode on our website, www.adamandhistorypodcast.com, where we invite you to leave comments and questions.

You should also feel free to join us on Facebook, where we stay in touch with our community of over 20,000 listeners, and post news about upcoming series and episodes. So that's all for this episode. Until next time, take care. Thank you.