10 ottoman city

8/9/2019 10 Ottoman City

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This article is about the maincharacteristics of the Ottoman cities in theBalkans, Anatolia and North Africa.

It analyzes their evolution under Ottomanrule and the interconnection between them.

The Concept of 'Ottoman city' to refers tothe cities developed under the Ottoman

rule. Ottoman city had its roots in Islamic,Turkish and Byzantine traditions.


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What methods did the Ottomans usein city building?

What were their tools and methods inthis endeavor?

What were the main characteristicsof the Ottoman city?

How did the Ottoman cities evolveover time?


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At h e beginning of the fourteenth century,the Ottomans had established a smallprincipality on the Byzantine border.

In less than two hundred years, thisprincipality developed into a world empireincluding vast areas in the Balkans,Anatolia, the Middle East and North Africa.

Within this huge geography, it includeddiverse ethnic, religious, economic andpolitical structures.


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the Ottomans adopted a flexibleapproach in administering thesewidely different areas.

they not only observed the localpractices, but also created newstructures by focusing on the rich

traditions of these regions.They established harmonybetween

new and old.


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Because of different historical backgrounds andgeographic conditions, Ottomans had adopteddifferent policies for different cities.

Each city had diverse cultures and administrativeforms.

The Ottomans tried to create a harmonious society.

This led to the formation of several types of

provincial administration and urban life within thesame empire.

In order to understand the roots of the Ottomancity, it is necessary to know the pre-Ottoman

traditions and conditions as.


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Before Ottomans arrived in the Balkans, threetypes of cities were present:

the polis: established by the Greeks in the

areas of Greece and Thrace (OttomanRumelia), in which there was almost nodistinction between city and state.

the dependent or administrative city of theRomans: which appear mainly in the Danube

area. the autonomous communes: like the maritime

cities of the Adriatic, Aegean and Black Seacoasts and the cities with special municipal

privileges.


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The settlement of Turkish tribes in largenumbers in Anatolia started toward the end ofthe eleventh century. This was the time whenByzantine rule was already weakened.

The decline of the Byzantine rule in Anatoliawas paralleled by a decline in the populationin urban and rural areas.

The cities were almost reduced to villages

confined to the castle walls. Despite this, Byzantine urban culture strongly

influenced early Turkish settlement patternsand the physical features of the early Turkish

cites.


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The Mongol invasion of the thirteenth century broughta second wave of migrants from Central Asia.

Many of sedentary and non-sedentary groups settledin the Western part of Anatolia.

These newcomers brought to Anatolia their own urbanculture. They realized the Turkification of the Anatolian cities

in the course of two hundred years, mainly underSelcukid rule (1074-1243).

The Turkification of cities occurred in three ways:1. repopulation and development of old Byzantine cities,2. establishment of new cities and3. sedentarization of nomads in the cities.


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The Middle East and North Africa constituted the corearea of the Muslim world.

Because Islam had originated and spread from thisgeography.

The spread of Islam realized with the building of the cities. Islam was an urban religion

Therefore, Islam regulated urban society and determinedthe basic elements of the urban culture.

The concept of the Islamic city is used to describe thecities in the core area of the Muslim world.

But the cities in this area were not totally the same, theydiffered from one another and changed internally innumerous ways.

However, they had certain features in common.


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The major elements of the Islamic city wereo the congregational mosque,

o the suiq (permanent market) ando

the public bath situated at the center of the city. Other elements were the narrow streets, blind

passageway and the inner courtyards of buildings.

Namely, they were unplanned cities.

City was divided as residential and commercial areas.

The quarters were enclosed spaces in the residentialarea. It composed of ethnically homogenous groups.


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Islamic cities were not the autonomous communes likeEuropean cities in the Middle Ages.

However, they possessed some kind of autonomy. Forexample, heads of the quarters and guilds were

intermediaries between the townspeople and the state. In fact, social relationships made order and community

possible.

In this sense, the Islamic city dwellers had a highlydeveloped sense of solidarity.

They possessed a civic consciousness because they wereborn in a city, lived there and had family ties in that city,believed the same religion, spoke the same language.


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Before the arrival of the Ottomans, the territories in theMiddle East and North Africa were under the Mamluke rule(1260-1517). Its capital was Cairo.

Due to the Mongol invasions, the cities of the Middle East,

particularly in the Iraq region, were devastated and unableto recover for centuries.

The Mamluke reign was also a period of gradual decline forthe cities, particularly in the regions of Egypt and Syria.

When Selim I (1512-1520) took over Damascus (Ottoman

am), the provincial capital of Syria, the city was in ruins. Particularly destructive was the outbreak of plague which

struck the population in 1348.

therefore, the Ottomans took over a region and a societywhich had been in decline for the previous two hundred

years.


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Second Part


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The newly conquered territories were incorporated into the Ottomanadministrative system in two ways:

1. they were either incorporated directly into the provincial administration, or

2. left in the hands of the local elite who pre-dated the conquest.

The first method, called the timar system, was applied in the Balkans and

Anatolia, excluding the Eastern part and Syria. The second method was applied in North Africa and part of the Middle East

under the name of the salyane system and in some parts of the EasternAnatolian provinces under the name ofhkmet.

In these provinces, the revenues were not distributed among the stateofficials as tmars. After paying all the militaryand administrative expenses,the governors of these provinces had to remit to the capital a fixed annualsum known as salyane.


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The basic tools utilized by the

Ottomans1.The activities of the Sufi orders,

2. forced migration and

3. the waqf system


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Dervish convents and Sufi orders became the nuclei of manyvillages and cities.

The dervish convents were usually established on thepassageways and in uninhabited areas .

They provided safety and security.

The heads of the convents, dervishes, also played important roles,particularly in the settlement of the Turkish population in theBalkans and Anatolia.

In the earlier periods, these dervishes took part in the conquest ofthe Balkans and initiated the Turkification of Rumelia.

They were granted revenues by the waqfs.


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The policy of forced migration (srgn) wasimplemented by the state mainlyas a means ofsedentarization and urbanization.

Sedentarization of the nomads contributed to theTurkification and Islamization of the newlyconquered places and the formation of villages onthe caravan routes or in the unpopulated areas.

Various professionals such as artisans, craftsmen

and merchants as well as ordinary peasants weresystematically transferred from Anatolia to theBalkans and from the Balkans to Anatolia in orderto develop urbanization in the newly acquired

territories.


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The policy of forced migration wasfollowed by Mehmed II (1451-1481).

He imported professionals to Istanbul for

an economic revival. He utilized the practice of forced migration

for the purpose of revitalizing economiesand creating an ethnic religious blendamong the inhabitants of big cities such asSalonika and Trebizond (Ottoman

Trabzon).


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Through waqfs, many bulindings were established suchas as bedestens shops, caravanserais, mills, bathhousesand dye-houses.

These buildings were frequently established to renovate

the old cities. Ottoman state tried to protect and promote the

development of cities by the way ofklliye. Indeed, the economic and commercial growth of many

cities like Istanbul, Edirne, Bursa and Konya was planned

around the kulliyes. The establishment of Fatih Klliyesi by Mehmed II and

other kulliyes by the Ottoman sultans in Istanbulindicates their significance in the development of cities.


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The most prominent characteristic of the Ottoman city isthe division of the urban space into two parts:

a. A commercial center, where economic, religious, cultural,etc. activities were carried out, and

b. a residential area. Because of this kind of division, there were two types of

road network:

1. wide and well organized roads at the center

2. narrow roads and blind alleys in the residential area.

The planned construction of the center was carried out bythe Sultans and statesmen through waqf endowments.

The residential area was divided into quarters whereprivacy is very important.


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The core area of the center was the commercialzone consisting ofbedesten, caravanserais andshops.

These buildings belonged to waqfs and providedthe larger part of the urban commercial facilities.

The center was organized according to the mainbusiness center of the city, i.e., a bedesten in thebig cities, and a bazaar in the medium to smallsize cities.

The shops and buildings allocated for each craftor business in a street called as uzun ars.


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Cultural, religious and health serviceswere provided by the klliyes.

Theywere also situated at the centerof the city.

The great mosque was the mostprominent symbol of the Ottoman city,

and it was a part of the klliye complex

together with their annexes of higher

schools, public baths and fountains.


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the residential area of the city was divided into quarterscalled mahalle.

The quarters of the ordinary city dwellers were further fromthe center.

The unorganized structure of the Ottoman city, i.e., narrowand labyrinthine streets, blind alleys and unplanned quartersis closely related to the concerns for privacy of the citydwellers.

Quarters were the basic units of urban society.

They were governed by a local prayer leader (mam). Each quarter was also the unit for administration and tax

collection.

The quarters were usually formed around a mosque.

Members of a quarter knew each other and were responsible

for the behavior of each other.


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Segregation on the basis of ethnicity was themost important characteristic of Ottoman cities.

Like most city dwellers, minority groups usually

lived in their separate quarters. The city of Jerusalem (Ottoman Kuds) is the

best example of this.

It was divided into four large quarters, namely

Muslim, Christian, Jewish and Armenian. The division of quarters according to ethnic-

religious identity or occupation, did not meanthere was a lack of communication or dialogamong these groups.


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In the time of Ottomans, the overall populationincrease in the cities.

The rise in urban population was faster than thatof the rural population.

Parallel with the population increase, urbangrowth was mostly concentrated in the Westernand central parts of Anatolia.

The amazing growth of cities, coupled with thepopulation increase.


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All the production and manufacturing activities in the cities werecarried out within the framework of the guild organization.

In guild organizations rules and regulations were well-defined.

The sale of manufactured goods was also arranged by the guilds.

Most of urban guilds worked primarily for the local marketconsisting of the town and the surrounding villages.

Some specialized and valuable goods were also produced for theinternal and external market.

For example, the textile production from Egypt was sold inEuropean markets as well as in internal markets of the empire.

Similarly, Ankara specialized in manufacturing mohair textilesexported to Europe.


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The commercial centers of the cities grew up around thebedestens, which were places of international trade andbusiness.

Jewellery shops were next to the bedesten, as were the

places for money exchange. Other shops wereproducing and selling such products as

shoes, soap, quilts, mats, etc., were also located at the citycenter.

Bedestens were found in all the big Ottoman cities such as

Istanbul, Bursa, Sarayevo, Sofia, Monaster, Serres, andSalonika.

In the cities where there was no bedesten, inns (han)fulfilled similar functions.

Those inns were located at the center of the city.


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The Ottoman Empire was the largest political formation in the areasince the Roman Empire.

This formation facilitated the circulation of various goods as well aspeoples in a single unit where the same laws and regulations wereobserved and the same currency was in use.

The huge markets of the empire provided a necessary means for thedevelopment of internal trade until the nineteenth century.

For example, textiles from Syria and Egypt, coffee from Aleppo andCairo, spices and textiles from the East, leather works, woollenclothes and olive oil from the Maghrib, tobacco from Selanik andtimber from Anatolia were all marketed within the empire.

The provisioning of Istanbul was a huge task for the state and it

created an enormous market for internal trade. The military needs of the state also created substantial demand in

the internal markets. Up to the nineteenth century, trade with Europe was of secondary

importance for Ottomans because they were self-sufficient for manytrade items and goods.


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The nineteenth century was a periodof the modernizing efforts.

Modernization of the Ottoman stateand society under the stronginfluence of Europe inevitablybrought changes in the

administrative and spatialorganization of the cities as well as inthe lifestyles of urban dwellers.


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Under the modernizing program, the center of Istanbul wassuccessfully managed by the use of new technology, i.e.,cars and tramcars.

The center then became an integrated whole.

However, for the inner city transportation, the newtechnology was inadequate.

In the residential areas, wooden houses transformed tobrick houses,

the result was that the city developed and enlarged

towards previously uninhabited areas.


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The earthquake of 1855 was taken as anopportunity to implement themodernization program for the first time

outside Istanbul. Bursa was declared a development area

and was reorganized and restoredaccording to the new concept of urbanism

and the ideals of the Tanzimat. the old model of a separated and

segregated city transformed into anintegrated whole.

10 ottoman city

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