Ottomans: best and worst thing to happen to islam?

[The Comrade]

i present you, PCF, with another "meta" thread regarding a nuanced topic.

The title is fairly self explanatory as far as where i want to go with this. was the ottoman empire, which encompassed most of what we would consider "islamic territory" and "islamic culture" a more beneficial force than a negative one?

let's explain both sides, shall we?

why the ottoman's were a force of good: while islam was militarily powerful at it's beginning, it mostly just had the advantage of almost no resistence. the remnants of the roman empire just sealed off the eastern borders of anatolia and pretty much let the levant and egypt fall(slightly more nuance here but the result isn't any different). the populous converted within a few generations, and the arabification of north africa began. the ottomans, in fact, were a big bad scary monolith of islamic throat stomping to the east of europe for quite some time, and it's not simply a coincidence that when most of europe was forming into proper kingdoms, none really Challenger the ottomans. even when europe had far surpassed the ottomans in terms of military capability and technology, they were still left alone. now this could be argued for multiple reasons but i think military might still played a role here.

but the emergence of europe in the late 1300s, early 1400s wasn't just an end of the dark ages. europe was coming into it's own militarily and it had its sights set on conquest. to cut this history lesson short, without a big bad empire guarding all of the former byzantine empire it is probable that, like elsewhere in the islamic world, the territories would have devolved into tiny emirates and city-states, none of which would have had the organization or power to stand up to, say, european whims of conquering the holy land again (or the probable byzantine desire to reclaim old lands). countries like portugal made it clear, too, that they were willing to take over muslim lands. their war with morrocco, despite losing, made that pretty clear. so i don't think it's a stretch to say that europe probably would have liked to gain the riches of the near east if they had the opportunity to.

so to sum this up, again, the ottomans kept europe out most likely. so what did that do for islam? well considering the time in which europe would have reconquered the middle east was around the time they were going through the whole "gold, glory, and god" phase it's probable that they would have tried to spread christianity. especially considering how evil they considered islam to be (for a variety of reasons, some legitimate. especially to those in iberia). when these areas DID fall to europe in the nineteenth and twentieth century, europe was pretty much over the "convert or die" phase of empire building, so it had no effect, really, on religious compositions. so what the ottomans did is keep islam and islamic culture safe from being re-christianized.

so what did the ottomans do to hurt islam? islamic culture, which the ottomans were the dominating force involved in that for quite some time, kind of sort of hit a brick wall as far as development goes. europe sprung ahead while the middle east stayed in the 11th century. had it been re-christianized, rewesternized, the middle east would have developed right along with europe, both culturally as well as economically. while the massive atrocities that would have been committed in the name of jesus would be a horrific historical anecdote it is likely that the religious turmoil that is brewing in north africa and the middle east would be gone, or at the very least subdued. this is not to say that terrorism wouldn't exist today or that there would be no conflict, as muslims would still live there. but it's VERY likely, given trends in turkey, that if these countries remained majority muslim, they would be far less poor, far less unstable. and therefore far more moderate in their islam

now, i know an argument against this might be "look at what europe did to africa, they're pretty f**k"

and that's true. that's VERY true. but africa did not have the economic, cultural, and geographic advantages that a place like the middle east would have had in terms of avoiding being taken totally advantage of. especially not during the time in question, at the plateau of islamic culture. likely these places would have been incorporated into the fold of empires, being too valuable to simply decimate for natural resources (and lacking oil at the time there's not many natural resources TO exploit there).

so how does this hurt islam? well much of islamic culture stems from the arab world and we can trace the modern, hardcore islamist movements right back to the middle east. had these places modernized with the rest of the world, and remained majority muslim, it is likely the ripple effect on the islamic world would have been incredibly positive. imagine an entire region of states like turkey spreading not salafism but moderate dogma? if they didn't remain majority muslim there would most likely not be a powerful state like saudi arabia pushing radical islam, as the majority of remaining islamic states would be central asia, persia, pakistan, and some of the south east places. islam in africa would have most likely not taken off nearly as much as it did in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries either. not that eliminating islam would be some inherently good thing, but this simply illustrates that islam would likely be less pervasive around the world and less likely to have the same problems that we currently have, namely because a lack of major world players.



so while the ottomans defended high islamic culture, they may have also set back the middle east, and all islamic cultures, as far as development, modernization, and moderate doctrine. thoughts?

[The Dharma Bum]

I think overall they were a positive force. They were pretty advanced and I don't think they really held Islamic culture back. I would say they were one of it's highest expressions. Until industrialization occurred they were a major power in the world. This was until around WWI so it's pretty recently that they lost their empire.

Also Kemal Ataturk was a powerful progressive force in the Islamic world after the defeat of the Ottoman Empire.

[The Comrade]

they really weren't that advanced once europe got it's shit together. they were outclassed for the last few centuries of their existence. their only advantage, like russia of the twentieth century, was having a shitload of men which allowed them to just stomp all over the weak slavic states of the balkans. after their defeat at vienna they had no hope of EVER making inroads into mainland europe.

and sure, it was the highest expression of islamic culture. too bad it was expressing a 13th century culture well into the twentieth century.


and major power of the world? no. they were a major power of the mediterranean, and then only because no one cared enough about them when they got left behind to bother taking their land.

plus this really ignores the issue of where islam is today and ignores the point i made about islamic culture being held back in the medieval era. skirts the whole topic, actually.

[eynon81]

Very interesting question, I'm gonna think about this but my first instinct is to say no.

My understanding is that the Ottomans basically turned the Arab states into a stagnant feudal cash-cow to help finance their titanic struggles against the Holy Roman Empire (and friends) and the Persians. They turned most of the mid-east into a set of corrupt satraps and let the meanest locals run them as long as the taxes came in. I think the Turks viewed themselves as more European than Middle-Eastern, so seemed to always be looking to Europe in terms of their major "projects".

As to being a bulwark against European expansion. It's an interesting thought. I think much of Europe's reaction against Islam during that period was a reaction to the Turks. The Ottomans had conquered huge swaths of "Christian Lands" and many Christians had an obsession with getting them back. That obsession however, did no trump the desire for gold and to stick it to regional rivals.

I don't think the Europeans would have been that interested in taking over the Mideast during the "god and gold" phase. America was easy pickings and Asia was much richer. Plus they really, really wanted to kill each other. Even during the height of Turkish power and their threat to Europe Germans fought French, French fought Spanish, Poles fought Russians, Russians fought Hungarians, and everybody fought the Italians.

You saw some really brief major alliances when the Turks got too scary; Lepanto, 2nd Vienna....but as soon as the threat receded the Europeans would start killing each other again.

With no Ottomans I think that maybe Greece and Hungry would be much bigger and maybe Spain/Portugal would own chunks on North Africa.

BUT....The Mideast in general maybe in better shape.

[PoS]

The Ottomans introduced buttsecks to Islam.

[Boris Johnson]

Com, think your going to have to better explain the link between being christian and what exactly? The renissance, the enlightment the industrial revolution? Each followed the other, but certaintly not the same thing.

Also, not very active in the orthodox parts of christendom. Which presumably is what a lot of the former Ottoman lands would have gone to.

[Clarino]

Shouldn't this be in the Pulpit?

[Boris Johnson]

[The Dharma Bum]

[The Comrade]