Re "Muslim Ottoman Empire" - There were many minorities with myriad different religions in the Ottoman Empire, since they did not force conversion in places they conquered. That is, incidentally, why the Balkans and the rest of Eastern Europe are not Muslim right now. So "Muslim Ottoman Empire" is not exactly correct.
Re "Ruled by Turks" - While you have a point above that the Ottoman Empire was of Muslim majority, it is not correct to call its Padishahs "Turks". While it certainly started out that way, harems were mostly filled with foreign women, and mothers of the Padishahs were almost invariably non-Turk. If you take a look at the "pedigree", you will see that there are Russians, Europeans, etc that seriously dilute the "Turk"ness of the Padishahs.
As for the rest of the "rulers", it is easier to prove - the "devshirme" system of the Ottoman Empire basically collected youngsters in conquered lands and brought them to Istanbul, to be educated, trained, indoctrinated etc as the future soldiers & government officers of the Empire. They did this to avoid any single family becoming a dynasty, putting their relatives in places of power, and rivaling the Padishah's family. The result was that the government under the Padishah, "rulers" as you say, were predominantly non-Turk.
A strange and quite fascinating system, actually... |
