Your post is perplexing. You say
There was no Sharia during the Ottoman Empire.
If pressed, I suspect I could give you hundreds of references of the Sharia in the Ottoman Empire. If you would like a few just enter Sharia and Ottoman Empire in Google. I’m sure you will come up with sufficient hits.
You say
The "devshirme" were the young people the padishah's men selected from the conquered lands, to be educated in the "Ottoman Way" and serve as functionaries, soldiers, and even pashas - there were many "vezir"s (highest rank after the Padishah) who were devshirmes.
Selected is an interesting choice of words. Again using Google, type in devshirme and slave and you will find many references that have a different perspective.
Again re. The conversion to Islam of the devshirme, you say
I am afraid that was not so. Curiously, converting them to Islam were not part of the plan…
My history books, my encyclopedia, and on line references all dispute your assertion. Consider
One institution that figures prominently in the history of the Balkans was that of the devshirme. This was a system by which Christian youths were conscripted, made to convert to Islam, and placed in positions in the army and the bureaucracy.
from
loyno.edu
To continue, you say
I am especially intrigued by the way the Ottoman Empire has not converted the conquered lands in Balkans and the rest of Europe to Islam, and left them pretty much to themselves except for the devshirme and the non-Muslim tax they were to pay. Hence the reason why they are still Christian to this day, although they have spent quite a while under the rule of the Ottoman Empire.
Well of course they all aren’t Christian, but although I don’t have the Ottoman period is sort of a hobby, what little I know seems consistent with the idea that the Sultan viewed the European land as an area to be “milked” for slaves and tribute. Mass conversions would have posed a problem. As for the treatment the Balkan people received, the few first hand experiences I have had with Greeks, Serbs Croats and Romanians all uniformly have had an abiding loathing of the Turks.
Since again my response to you grows long, I will only briefly reply.
Re. They conquered, and then got the tax. They did not forcibly convert
Constantly taxed to destitution and enslavement, humiliated in the good times and massacred in the bad, I guess we just have a different idea of what force means.
Uncivil times
The jizya was collected in some places up until the beginning of the twentieth century.
Just like the revolution in Europe and the subsequent rise of secularism, I am sure Muslims will also do their own revolution.
Let’s hope with something a little less bloody than the Thirty Years War.
. I am afraid of a future where this strategy will cause the problem to spiral out of control
We share that fear.
lurqer |
