# The Ottoman Empire: Old World Memories and Remnants of a Golden Age



## dreamtime (May 25, 2022)

_"Despite their contrasting trajectories, the Ottoman and Russian empires met nearly synchronous demises. This fact suggested to many that a common phenomenon, nationalism, best explains the empires’ deaths. The contemporaneous collapse of yet another dynastic, polyethnic empire, the Austro-Hungarian, the emergence of a new world order that assumed the principle of national self-determination as a principle for state legitimacy, and the mushrooming of self-proclaimed nation-states throughout the post-imperial spaces of the Middle East and Eurasia testified to the seemingly irresistible power of nationalism. Nationalism, or so it has appeared, was a universal and elemental force capable of bringing down and sweeping away preexisting state institutions and identities."_
*- Michael A. Reynolds, Shattering Empires*​Austrian school Economist Ludwig von Mises discusses the differences between patriotism, nationalism, militarism, liberalism and statism in his book "Omnipotent Government: Rise of the Total State". He tracks down the roots of nationalism to liberalism - the ideology of the enlightenment with the goal of uniting the nations of the old world as free citizens with their natural rights, under a free-market economy and limited state. Nationalism is a perverted form of patriotism and liberalism. In practice, liberalism quickly turned into nationalism and militarism. Especially in the countries where different nations claimed souverignty to the same area (Eastern Europe for example). The problem with focusing on nationalism is that nationalism was merely a means to an end for creating nation states with absolute power over the individual.

The Ottoman Empire is a good example of an empire based on individual liberties and the free market. The emperors created frameworks primarily for creating more harmonious interactions between individuals, but the Empire didn't dictate how people lived their lifes in all details. Such an autocratic Empire naturally comes with restrictions of freedom and liberty, but these restrictions were minor compared with today. Only with the rise of the democratic, parlamentiary nation state did people start to become fully owned by the state.

So in the end it wasn't nationalism that brought the old empires down - it was statism, the ideology of the democratic nation state. This ideology was based on the movement of the enlightenment, controlled by secret socities. Liberalism was the bait-and-switch offer to the intellectuals that prepared the revolutions. Blaming nationalism instead of statism plays in the hand of the elites who want to replace nations with a "global" order.




 


Left:_ The Ottoman Empire at it's cultural peak in 1593. Was this really an Empire, or rather something resembling a commonwealth of free kingdoms united by a primary "religion"?_
Right: _The gradual Annihilation of the Ottoman Empire from 1878 to 1913: The Cabal slowly deconstructed the dying Empire with the help of Freemason-inspired Secet Socities, political intrigues and economical pressure, all of which culminated into the first world war. Image taken from "Shattering Empires"_​
Between 1876 and 1915 a full one-quarter of the world’s surface lost their old governments and got conquered by imperial forces.

Once again we find the Industrial Revolution in the West as the root cause of fundamental changes with no prior equivalent. Since no one really knows why it happened, the "Great Divergence" is also considered a "miracle":

The Great Divergence or European miracle is the socioeconomic shift in which the Western world overcame pre-modern growth constraints and emerged during the 19th century as the most powerful and wealthy world civilization, eclipsing Ottoman Turkey, Mughal India, Qing China, Tokugawa Japan, and Joseon Korea. (...) Technological advances (...) were embraced to a higher degree in the West than the East (...). - Wiki​​This power shift sealed the fate of all the independent kindgoms and empires on earth, as the old-world post-reset lifestyle focused on  the quiet life of sustainable agriculture, arts, tradition and religion while keeping politics and military at a minimum, no longer worked.

Historian Paul Bairoch argues that the main weakness of the Ottoman Empire was that it embraced free trade: This also meant that it was affectively at the mercy of the developments in the west, having to compete with all the advances happening there. In our understanding we can interpret this not as a weakness, but as a strength, at least in the old world. But what was a strength in the old world, now became a weakness. Western Historians at first didn't really get why the Ottoman _Old Regime _or _Ancien Régime_ consciously created a system based on decentralization - giving up power willfully is something alien to western thinking. That's why the original thesis was that this decentralization was an involuntary decline. New data shows, however, that it was rooted in tradition, and was actually done on purpose.

The Ottoman Empire had created a free-trade system where tax-farming privileges would be sold to the highest bidder - an extremely effective and efficient free market system that sustained both wealth and freedom. This was later abolished under the term of the "New Order" as a response to the threat of Western nationalism and militarism. The way of life in the old Arab world was based on relative religious freedom, freedom of trade, leisure (bathhouses, cofeehouses) and luxuries. The connection of bathhouses with mosques suggest that the original role of religion was related to purification and healing of the body and spirit. Until 1850, the Ottoman Empire was the only empire that remained in the world to have never contracted any foreign debt.




_"Daily Life In Ottoman Empire", by Fausto Zonaro_​
The "Ottoman Decline Thesis" goes like this:

... following a golden age associated with the reign of Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent (1520–1566), the empire gradually entered into a period of all-encompassing stagnation and decline from which it was never able to recover, lasting until the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire in 1923.​​This turned out to be a political view used to destroy the Old Regime. Instead, it makes more sense to see it this way: The decentral way of life was a memory of the Byzantine Empire, and the first decades of the Ottoman Empire still lived in the quality and memories of a "Golden Age". From that on, even though a slow culcural decline can be observed, people actively fought against this decline by keeping the old way of life as much as possible:

"The Ottoman Empire was essentially conservative in its administrative policy (...) In the heterogeneous frontier-society of the early Ottoman state, little attention was paid to rigid Islamic orthodoxy. (...)​​Like earlier Muslim states, the Ottoman Empire looked for its ideals and inspiration to a golden age in the past, was sceptical of the effectiveness of human endeavour, and found the idea of progress alien to its values."​​*- "Egypt and the Fertile Crescent", P. M. Holt*​​According to Eastern Oriental tradition, the world goes through stages of devolution, and the passage from the glorious Byzantine Empire towards the less harmonious Ottoman Empire could be a sign of the last of such "resets":

The Hindu tradition has the same teaching in the form of the four cycles respectively called _satyayuga_, _treta-yuga_, _dvapara-yuga_ and _kali-yuga_ (i.e. dark age), to which is added the image that in each of these ages another prop of the bull symbolizing the dharma, the traditional law, falls away. (...)​​The Iranian version is similar to the Greek one: the four ages are known and characterized by gold, silver, iron and an "iron mixture". In the teachings of the Chaldeans this view is also found with almost the same designations. (...)​​The prevailing view of the ancient traditional teachings says that in reality there will be a kind of rupture which then separates one cycle from the other. It would not come to a gradual regathering and rebuilding, but to a completely new beginning, to a sudden, abrupt change, which would be due to an impulse from the divine and metaphysical realm. (...)​
*- Julius Evola*​
After the American and French Revolutions had destroyed the Old Order in the West in order to replace empires/kingdoms with nation states, it was time for the Powers That Be (PTB) to target the few remaining independent Empires that remained, including the Ottoman Empire. Russia, Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman Empire all imploded after WW1, but only the Ottoman Empire was a real threat. Since the Russian Empire was already mostly under control of the PTB, the primary focus was to bring down the Ottoman Empire.
As I try to show in this text, the population still lived in the memories of the old times, it was a decentralized and involuntarily multiethnic society, nevertheless based on respect, spirituality and tradition, and people considered themselves survivors of the last reset - they were not Turks, but proud Romans, heirs to Byzantium.

Putting people like cattle into nation states with an official (often forced and artificial) high-level language, culture and race is a pretty new concept, and it's important to understand that "governance" meant something completely different 300 or 500 years ago - what if governance was historically seen as taking care of the necessary things while causing the least amount of annoyance to ordinary people just living their lifes? Monarchs and rulers were a natural solution to this problem. The idea was to elect the best people to lead an empire, and it seems historically before the rise of big empires (like the Ottoman Empire) most empires were actually pretty small units. With the rise of democracy and nation states, suddenly the government turned into a big and unsatiable behemoth that tries to devour it's citizens. While mainstream history tries to convince us that the entire human history was violent and evil, I think it was completely different until recently. In the old world, people often loved their monarchs and emperors.


Fall of Greece in 1821​Greece was part of the Ottoman Empire until 1821 and one of the first parts of the Empire to fall victim to subversion.

The Greek so-called "War of Independence" was initiated by the newly created Secret Society _Philiki Etaireia_ (“Friendly Society”), inspired by Western Freemasonry, and run by Freemasons with Western roots. Their goal was the overthrowing of Ottoman-Turkish rule.

The roots of Freemasonry in Greece go back to 1782 when the first Lodge was opened on Corfu, an island under Venetian rule while the rest of Greece was still in the hand of the Ottomans. The lodge was under the direction of the Grand Lodge of Verona (Padova, Italy). More Lodges were created in the following years on other Venice-controlled islands (throughout the Heptanisa, the “seven islands”, near the western Greek coast).

In 1809, a precursor to _Philiki Etaireia_ was founded in Paris (France) as a secret society with the name _Ellinoglosso Xenodocheio_ ("Greek-speaking Hotel"), with the outright goal of destroying the Ottoman Empire in Greece and "liberating" Greece. Another Greek secret society was founded in Vienna in 1790 and called “Bon Cuisins".

_Philiki Etaireia_ also had important connections to the Phoenix Lodge in Moscow, some think that it was their mother lodge. We see that the different heads of the Hydra slowly moved into the Ottoman Empire from the West and from Russia.

The Name​The Ottomans didn't call themselves Ottomans. On old maps, we see that the Ottoman Empire was commonly called the Turkish Empire. But most people didn't want to be called Turks either. Many were still connected to the Byzantine culture before the Ottoman rule when the Turks conquered Constantinpole in 1453. Islam was more seen as a manifestation of the original singular religion, and not a a competing religion with Christianity.




People living in the Ottoman Empire did not call themselves Turks or Ottomans, they considered themselves _Rūmī_ or "Roman", their heritage and culture rooted firmly in the Byzantine Empire. We can likely consider the Ottoman Empire as one of those post-reset Empires - a shadow of the Old World that broke apart around 600 years ago (+-100 years). These Empires probably renamed themselves afterwards, for example Scythia turned into Tartary, as we can observe on the old maps, depending on which party rose to power.

While official history tells us that the Turks conquered the Byzantine Empire and over time slowly replaced Orthodox Christianity with Islam, the old spirit remained alive - the fact that the Turks respected other religions certainly helped.

The Ottoman Emperors considered themselves the true heirs to the Roman Empire. They claimed that they simply changed the primary religion from Christian to Islam, but kept everything else in the ancient tradition. Even if that's not entirely true, the authentic connection to the past is plausible. While it's probably true that many Orthodox Christians fled to places like the Danubian Principalities or Morea (the last orthodox strongholds) to live a life without the influence of Islam, it seems the difference between Islam and Christianity wasn't as hardened and ideological as today. It seems people considered those simply like different sport teams, but it was still the same sport.

Both Western Rome and Russian Rome ("The Third Rome") tried to deligitimize the Ottoman rulers, as everyone claimed to be the "True Rome".

There are other hints that Christians and Muslims were closer ideologically than Christians and Papists or Muslims and Papists:

In 1845 during the Irish Potato Famine, the Ottoman Sultan Abdülmecid offered £10,000 to the people of Ireland, but Queen Victoria negotiated it down, as she had only sent £1,000 herself. So the Sultan sent £1,000, but also five ships full of food. While the British allegedly tried to block the ships, they succesfully delivered the food. An Ireland journal wrote:_ “The conduct of Abdülmecid on the occasion referred to, was that of a good, humane, and generous man. A believer in Mohammedanism. he acted in the true spirit of a follower of Christ, and set an example which many professing Christians would do well to imitate.”_

On the other hand, the Ottoman persecution of the Yazidis, a Kurdic people connected to the original forms of esoteric Sufism, Christianity and Zoroastrianism, shows that deep-rooted spirituality was suppressed in a similar way as in old Europe with the heretics.

*1750 - Mark of the Last Cultural Break?*​



_"Polyethnicity and National Unity in World History", William H. McNeill_​
William H. McNeill traces the roots of modern nationalism to around 1750: Before this time, people did not primarily think in terms of racial or religious differences - communities, kingdoms and empires were seen as heterogenic, with people living peacefully together in relative harmony.  While there was a memory of an ancient time when peoples lived homogeneously and separately from each other (e.g. the memory of ancient Germania), it seems that people simply tried to make the best of the mixture of peoples resulting from the new post-reset living conditions.

He writes: _"...something must have happened in western Europe about 1750 to alter prevailing patterns of civilized society."_ But what happened? His remark could bring us to a better understanding of the last cultural break that shaped our modern way of life.

McNeill suggests a combination of different factors, including classical education based in Antiquity, Population growth and modern military. But he still doesn't provide a clear answer why something changed exactly in 1750 and not, say, in 1650 or 1850.

Population started to explode - it marked a turning point:

_"Never before, so far as anyone can tell, did human numbers spurt upwards everywhere, or almost everywhere, at once."_​
According to him, the population explosion on the countryside was one of the leading causes of the Revolutions, as there was not enough work on the countryside, so people had to move into the cities, desparate for food and shelter and a decent standard of living. This turned the traditional order upside down - especially in those empires that didn't have a stable food supply based on calory-dense tubers, like potatoes. Ireland was one example of a stable society based on efficient potato agriculture - the downfall of Ireland was not the lack of food, but the political ambitions of the British Empire, and the artificial creation of a famine.

McNeill is puzzled about the effect that human population started to explode everywhere in the world at once, for which there is no satisfying explanation currently. What if the cause was a massive cataclysm or war that had decimated humanity to a large extent?

The Little Ice Age and the Year without a Summer​According to McNeill, climate isn't an essential factor, and I tend to agree. The fundamental cause was something different, and there is no records in the history what could have happened - we only see the smoking gun, the Industrial Revolution. But I suspect the re-introduction of secret technology into western nations was behind this. This mysterious re-introduction provided the western states with an unfair advantage towards all the other kindgoms and empires on earth and kickstarted a massive population growth.

But climatic factors could be a contributing factor. The time between 1600 and 1700 was remarkably cold - a sign of a major cataclysm that lingered for a long time (that is, if the historic documentation is plausible. Let's just assume that it got very cold at one point, even if we dont blindly accept the given time frames.)

While the climate normalized mid 18th Century, a mysterious event today called the "Year without a Summer" hit the entire world in 1816 (or so it is said), which likely contributed to the success of the revolutionary movements. Interestingly, the year without a summer is still considered to be part of the Little Ice age.

"Between 1680 and 1730, the coldest cycle of the Little Ice Age, temperatures plummeted, the growing season in England was about five weeks shorter than it was during the twentieth century’s warmest decades. (...)​​Many political agendas seethed in France in 1788, but the poor, who had no interest in politics, had one primary concern - bread. (...) The weakness of the French social order, born of generations of chronic hunger, contributed to the outbreaks of violence before the historic events of the summer of 1789, when “the Great Fear of 1789” gripped much of France in mass hysteria and revolution and cast the peasantry into the political arena. (...)​​Social unrest, pillaging, rioting, and criminal violence erupted across Europe in 1816, reaching a climax the following spring. For centuries, the popular reaction to poor harvests and famine had been fervent prayer and civil disturbances. (...) But the grain riots of 1816/17 were marked by a level of violence unknown since the French Revolution. (...)​​The year 1816 acquired immediate notoriety on both sides of the Atlantic as “the year without a summer.” (...) The subsistence crisis triggered massive emigration throughout Europe. A quarter-century of war had pent up a generation of potential emigres. Tens of thousands of people journeyed down the Rhine from the German states into Holland, hoping to cross to America."​​*-The Little Ice Age, Brian Fagan*​
*The Nation State, Classical Antiquity & Implications of Rennaissance Forgery*​
The philosophical foundation for the modern revolutions that pulverized the monarchies and kingdoms, and even eroded those formal monarchies that came out of World War 1 as victors (especially Britain), were based on the classical authors of Antiquity - Platon, Artistotle, etc.

These authors had developed complex theories of modern nation states, we are told, already 2000 years ago, and the well-meaning revolutionaries just had to take these old books out of the drawer, dust them off, and voila - there it was, the perfect framework for modernity.

Since we know already (How Fake Is Roman Antiquity?) that most of the works were actually created around 1500 by the Papal forgery workshops in European monasteries or by Venetian "scholars" associated with the Pope, we should ask a couple questions.

What if the theories that actually came up with the concept of democracy were only invented 500 years ago, shortly before it was actually put into practice in the modern era? Even if the original works existed before, distorting them would effectively create a new context and meaning, which would have a similar effect as inventing them anew.
​What modern scholars understand as democracy nowadays was called _Politeia_ back then, as democracy was actually seen as the degenerated version of governing the _polis_ (city-state). Politeia stands for the community of citizens in a city or state.

What if the ancient concepts, written down in works such as _Politeia_ by Plato, never existed in these forms before 1500, and are just a fantasy-product of the rennaissance, an attempt to philosophically undermine the monarchies? A spin-off of Pagan materialism and nihilism, an attempt to undermine the traditional roots of humanity.

Interestingly, _politeia_ is translated as "commonwealth" or "freedom" in the Greek New Testament, and was not related to platonic political theory. Indeed it seems that the term _politeia_ was originally just a general term describing governance in the broadest sense, until it was used a tool for political propaganda by the Jesuit Vatican and it's allies. In Book III of _Politics_, Aristotle admits that _politeia_ refers generically to any form of government or constitution, but then continues to describe a very narrow definition of his version, suggesting an attempt by the chronology forgers to brainwash the public.

One of the humanist forgers from Venetia was Pietro Alcionio (he lived in the 15-16th century, we are told) protected by Pope Clement VII. This guy was accused of destroying the only original copy of Cicero's lost treatise _De Gloria. _Destroying originals, and creating sloppy, wrong or incomplete copies _- a_ common accusation against the Venetian humanists under the patronage of the Popes.

He translated many Byzantine Greek works into Latin for a western audience, and we can assume that his main goal was to distort Byzantine culture, commissioned by the Vatican. There are rumors in scholarly circles that Alcionio's works were practically banned in Byzantium, but there is no consensus on this. I wouldn't be surprised about this - after all, it was a culture war between subversive Papal forces that tried to undermine everything that the ancient world was based on, and the forces of tradition.

Pagan Papists vs. Orthodox Byzantium?​
_Why do the pagans delude themselves with Aratus the thrice-accursed? 
Why do they wander aimlessly in the direction of Plato? 
Why do they love Demosthenes the weak? 
Why do they not realise that Homer is an empty dream?
Why are they always talking of Pythagoras, who has been deservedly silenced?_
*- The Hymns of Romanos, 6th Century Byzantium*​
A working hypothosis that evolves from the available facts is that Papal Rome was actually Pagan, and not Christian. It only pretended to be Christian at one point, and for some reason quite successfully. But it seems most of the time, educated people knew what these guys were up to.

Paganism is related to idol-worship and Ritual Sacrifice. One could probably trace the modern networks of secret societies usually called the Illuminati back to these pagan roots. I think it basically boils down to them worshipping the material creation, the earth, which is symbolized by Saturn, a symbol for Satan. It seems there was a group in the old world, primarily based in Rome (Italy), France and Spain, which not only practiced Paganism, but devised a plan to subvert their arch-enemy, Christianity, in the name of Roman Catholicism. For some reason, their plan was a success, and between 1400 and 1700, they were able to gain control of their opponent, and slipped into the clothes of the Christian Church.

The most hated classical authors in the Orthodox Christian Byzantine Empire was Plato and his pupils. He was seen as anti-christian and Pagan, and platonism was seen as an attempt to destroy the religious order.




_"The major work of the Platonist philosopher George Gemistos Plethon, the Laws, was burnt by the patriarch Gennadios Scholarios, to whom it had been set for inspection, on the ground that it was an attempt to restore the pagan religion of classical antiquity."_
*- "Scholars of Byzantium", Nigel G. Wilson, p. 15*​
A key difference between Papal Rome and Byzantine Rome can be seen with the following example: The Pope and his army of forgers generally tried to control the narratives via manipulating or censoring existing works. Many originals outright disappeared, but some were rewritten. Some Orthodox Greek works were translated by Venetians, and in this process the Pope was able to eliminate knowledge from the books that he would see as dangerous to their power. For example, in 1573 the Pope in Western Rome, Gregory XIII, outright rewrote a new edition of Boccaccio’s _Decameron_ in line with the new rules of the Council of Trent.

The tomb of this Pope is visibly Pagan, as shown by KD:

Somehow we have _Minerva_ aka _Athena_ incorporated into this _Gregory XIII's Tomb_. Why would a Christian leader who _died in 1585_ have this Roman Goddess on his Tomb. We are talking about a pagan Goddess of War on the tombstone of the Pope here. I think the one on the left is _Clio the Muse_, but I'm not sure.​



_Camillo rusconi, monumento a gregorio XIII, 1723_​
The answer is likely, because there weren't Christian leaders - the time of Gregory fell in the time of the Rennaissance forgery, when these pagans were actively working on duping the public. Fascinatingly, they played the long-game, because all data shows that almost no one believed them back then. In those times, the empires were likely devided into two opposing factions - those who opposed paganism, and those who identified with it. And the latter would likely support the attempt to subvert Christianity. It was the time of the Vatican wars against the free Italian city-states. For example, Pope Alexander VI tried to bring Central Italy under his control.

In contrast to the Machiavellian strategies employed by the Vatican Church, the Byzantine Emperors didn't censor literary works, they only kept the access limited to what they called the "initiated", and theoretical and educational study was always possible, as long as you didn't try to overthrow their way of life:

"...the works of Plato were not heaped on a ceremonial bonfire, nor have the philosophical essays of Italos disappeared without trace. Instead anathemas were pronounced, and ordered to be included in the liturgy for Orthodoxy Sunday, the first in Lent, against those who believe in pagan ideas about the soul and the creation of the world, also those who accept the Platonic theory of ideas and those who study pagan literature for any purposes not purely educational. The notion of education implicit in this saving clause is typical of Byzantium; the literary study of the ancient authors does not commit one to acceptance of their views, nor does the falsehood of their views on many questions disqualify them from being suitable material for a school syllabus."​* - Scholars of Byzantium, p.13*​
This tolerant culture probably lived on in the Ottoman Empire - albeit in a less obvious and more subtle way.

*Deconstructing the Traditional Way of Life under Western Pressure*​
*

*
_"Islamic Societies were especially at risk. The internal struggles that paralyzed and impoverished the Ottoman Empire in the nineteenth century constitute a classic example of the price to be paid whenever the will to acquire the talisman of national greatness was strong while the social context within which the idea had to be pursued was stubbornly refractory."_
*- "Polyethnicity and National Unity in World History", William H. McNeill*​
The biggest weakness of the Ottoman Empire was it's strong connection to the old-world governance system and culture. When it comes to governance, we have to imagine the old world as diametrically opposed to the world we know today. Instead of centralized control via an increasingly global government, we had self-sustainable local systems even on the city level that co-existed peacefully with each others.

In the Ottoman Empire, two examples of this were the _Millets_, and the _Mahallahs_. The Millet granted non-muslims freedom and autonomy, and their own court of law, like the Greek Orthodox, Armenians and Jews. The Mahallahs were autonomous local district of governance, with freedom from any central oversight. This system, while perfect for a peaceful world, doesn't work in the post-reset world of political dominance and wars.

According to official history, the Muslim Turks had conquered the Byzantine Empire, but the orthodox Christian religion continued to co-exist relatively peacefully with Islam. The Greek Orthodox Church was considered an autonomous millet. It seems that Muslims and Orthodox Christians alike considered only the Vatican Popes their enemies. This is a pattern wee see repeatedly - the "Papists" were the common enemy, and all the other groups were more or less united in their protest against the Papists. This went so far that the Byzantine Empire rather accepted the capture by the Turks in 1453, instead of asking the Vatican Pope for help. The condition of help was for the Orthodox Church to reunite with Italian Rome, which basically would have meant being controlled by the Vatican. Since the Turks didn't object to Orthodox Christianity, both were no true enemies, there was still some memory that both Christianity and Islam had the same spiritual foundation. They competed with each other, but on a more casual level.

This decentral governance system existed in the entire Muslimic world, and was destroyed at roughly the same time. The Soviets were used to dissolve the system from the north-east, and the European Empires came from the West.

For example, Bukhara, an important trading center in the post-reset world, was part of the Emirate of Bukhara. In 1868, the Soviets conquered the free Empire.

Even in 1938, Bukhara was still called an "enchanted city" with buildings that rivalled "the finest architecture of the Italian Renaissance".



 


_"The bombing of Bukhara in 1920 by Bolshevik troops under the command of Mikhail Frunze marked the beginning of the destruction of old urban space in the city. The Ark suffered, along with the residential areas that surrounded it and the bazaar on the Registan. The debris around the Ark was cleared in September-October 1920, forming vast wastelands. People from across Bukhara fled; mosques and madrasas stood empty." (Source)_​
The mahalla were self-governing autonomous communities, embedded into a larger society:



> Each neighborhood mahalla — unit of local self-government — of Bukhara had a hedge school, while prosperous families provided home education to their children. Children started elementary education at the age of six. After two years they could be taken to madrasah. The course of education in madrasah consisted of three steps of seven years each. Hence, the whole course of education in madrasah lasted twenty-one years. The pupils studied theology, arithmetic, jurisprudence, logic, music, and poetry.​



The Soviets managed to turn the system around and pervert its purpose:



> After the establishment of the Soviet Union, informal mahalla organizations were placed under the state control and served as local extensions of the Soviet government. Mahallas were thought to be "eyes" and "ears" of the Soviet government; mahalla became a control mechanism of the state and the mahalla leaders were appointed by the government.



When the Ottoman rulers grasped the danger that was on the horizon, and the strategy employed by the authoritarian, military and war-like nations of the West and by Russia, the only possible reaction was to become authoritarian as well, even if they were morally opposed to it. They had to re-organize their culture fundamentally. This was not even remotely possible, which is why the Empire broke apart in the end.

Freedom and decentral governance was too deeply ingrained into Muslim culture. The population identified as the survivors of Byzantium, and their proud heritage and education coupled with the rural population made central control impossible.

Still, the Emperors tried: Sultan Abdulmejid I launched the Edict of Gülhane in 1839, a desperate attempt to restructure society from the bottom up, to avert the growing danger of annihilation by the powerful western states. The goal was a monolithic state with a central authority that could withstand outside attacks and subversion. This time period was known as the Tanzimat.

While the primary reason was modernization of the military, the real goal was to gain control over the entire population. While this move was reactionary in nature, the possibility can't be ruled out that these political changes slowly corrupted the Ottoman rulers over time, and made them as power-hungry as their western counterparts.

Since the Tanzimat was seen as insufficient by a Secret Society called the "Young Ottomans" (likely Freemason-controlled), which worked towards more radical goals, it seems the rulers were still trying to keep things reasonable.




Ziya Pasha, one of the founders of the Young Ottomans

Ziya_: "Is this how I do the secret hand-sign? Sorry, I'm new to this."_
Masonic Photographer: "_You are doing great, no worries."_





_Constantinople in the Ottoman Empire - Typical example of people who don't belong to the impressive structures they live in. They live in the ruins and traditions of a past they try to remember, but the memories fade with every generation._​
This nationalization led to increasing hostility of Muslims towards Non-Muslims, and the latter had their rights slowly taken away. This is one example of how the destruction of monarchies created the nationalist ideologies of the 20th Century and turned different groups against each other.

The Banking system was "modernized" (paper banknotes).  Post Offices got established. Post Offices are a mark of the post-monarchy world, and were not needed previously. The first Census happened. Identity cards were introduced, turning people into cattle. State-controlled Education reforms. Universities. Telegraph Networks. Railway systems. The stock exchange. And many other things.

In the end, for the PTB all of this worked out perfectly - the Ottoman Empire effectively collapsed even before World War 1, and the war marked the formal end of the old system. For the Ottoman Empire, the reforms were a disaster. Historian Zeynep Çelik wrote: "In summary, from 1838 to 1908 the Ottoman Empire staged its final but doomed struggle for survival."

What remains is the question what triggered the Industrial Revolution, which catapulted traditional monarchies and kingdoms all over the world into turbulent modernity and created the nation states we live in today. Even if this technology was invented more or less randomly and the West just got lucky, we still have signs of an elusive cataclysmic event that made the industrial revolution possible and restructured society from the bottom up.

The developments of the Ottoman Empire show that our ancestors considered our culture to be on a devolutionary and degenerating path. People always looked back to a more glorious past, and everything that was good about the present was good because it originated in this past.

*Related Threads:*

Turning books into ash - Ottoman Tartary (Part 1)
SH Archive - Ottoman-Era Photographs
Khedive period architecture in Cairo, Egypt


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## QuestionTheirLies (May 25, 2022)

This is a well put-together post and I appreciate the time you took to assemble the information and share it. I have to disagree with William H. McNeill on almost everything though, and I’m highly skeptical of his motives in distorting history, particularly that people didn’t consider race and ethnicity as important as they had distinct names for each group and identified primarily as members of their own local tribes… and because, as is the case with most of the the fake-scholar class, there’s no readily available information on his matrilineal heritage or that of his father. This is usually a sign such individuals are blood tied to TPTB and actively working to rewrite narratives to suit the cabal’s agenda.


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## dreamtime (May 25, 2022)

QuestionTheirLies said:


> particularly that people didn’t consider race and ethnicity as important as they had distinct names for each group and identified primarily as members of their own local tribes…



I think the main argument for this post is the observation of the 18th century as the turning point, and nationalism as a political ideology. This ideology was used to create modern nation states. Other than that, his concepts and ideas don't matter much to me. Most of these mainstream historians built irrational models used for political propaganda, he's probably no exception.

My impression was that he doesn't say that race wasn't important in day to day life though, but rather that it wasn't the primary factor that united people on a political level. But I could be wrong.

"France's revolutionary success impelled other European governments to remodel themselves on a nationalist base insofar as possible. Revolutionary movements embraced the same ideal in those parts of Europe where rulers could not or would not accept nationalist principles. Nor was the idea long confined to Europe since, before the close of the nineteenth century, the nationalist idea of claiming rightful sovereignty for 'the people,' i.e., for those who shared a common ethnic heritage, had taken root in such distant places as India and China."​
Maybe there's a better word for this, than "nationalism"? I think the word is apt though. It's the ideological use of the nation as a principle.

Given the well-documented roots of modern nationalism in the secret socities and the ideology of the enlightenment, it's safe to say that these groups desparately wanted people to identify with nations and create national identities.

It seems to me the concept of nationalism does not invalidiate the notion that many cultures seemed to be mono-ethnic originally.

In Germany, there are still great differences between Bavarians, and those from Lower Saxony for example. 50 years ago the differences were still so profound that many Bavarians saw themselves as Bavarians, and not as Germans. When I visited Bavaria the first time, I didn't even understand one older guy I was talking to, because he only spoke Old Bavarian, and no high-level German.

No matter the entire historical context, the creation of the german nation the way it happened seems a bit forced.

It seems in the old empires and monarchies, the idea of nations did not exist in the sense that it exists today. So people were united by something different than the concept of a nation. At least during the time after the breakup of the original nations. Maybe the old "Germania" of ancient times had split into different areas/kingdoms, including Bavaria, but there was still some lose concept of unity, and then this older concept was used in the 19th century to create a new model of the german nation, but this time under control of the PTB.


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## QuestionTheirLies (May 25, 2022)

I really like the way you word things @dreamtime 

I think of those 17th-18th-19th century Nations more like “confederations” as smaller ethnic enclaves banded together to resist Empires or conversely for some, in an effort to grow into Empires themselves.

Germany serves as a fantastic example though, because there were so many small kingdoms and territories which were simultaneously allies and competitors prior to unification. I believe the linguistic and cultural bonds between them created a better environment for consolidation/unification than the previously-employed strategy of conquest through which inhabitants of a newly-acquired territory were subjected to foreign culture/religion/language at the whim of the conquering rulers…. And importantly, in the case of the confederated model I’d differentiate between those 19th century nation-builders and today’s PTB. In the case of the aspiring Empire-builders I’d agree that these are likely the same PTB.

Much like modern “leaders” fantasize about some extra-terrestrial threat to galvanize the people, I believe that threats from more distant foreign groups provided a foundation for consolidation of local tribes and resources in the face of a perceived shared foe. While the timelines don’t match, I believe the military alliances forged by various Germanic tribes in the face of Roman invasion showcases this phenomenon well.


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## dreamtime (May 26, 2022)

One big problem with the term „nationalism“ may be that it neglects the importance of the state. since it wasn’t only about nationalism, but about nationalism connected to the concept of „democratic“ states.

so maybe objective historians would have used the term „statism“ to describe the rise of nation states. collectivist states that pretended to care about national unity.

_„Statism reaches out with disciplined and centralized ruling institutions into areas of domestic social, economic and mental ("intellectual" and creative) life where states seldom ventured in earlier times, where historically only religiously sanctified institutions were allowed to intrude.“_​
Statism


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## QuestionTheirLies (May 26, 2022)

dreamtime said:


> One big problem with the term „nationalism“ may be that it neglects the importance of the state. since it wasn’t only about nationalism, but about nationalism connected to the concept of „democratic“ states.
> 
> so maybe objective historians would have used the term „statism“ to describe the rise of nation states. collectivist states that pretended to care about national unity.


I think it’s confusing the terms… a Nation is a people. A State is a governmental body for a territory.


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## dreamtime (May 26, 2022)

QuestionTheirLies said:


> I think it’s confusing the terms… a Nation is a people. A State is a governmental body for a territory.



think I will update the OP, since this is an important aspect. confusing nations with states seems to be part of the leftist agenda.


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## QuestionTheirLies (May 26, 2022)

dreamtime said:


> think I will update the OP, since this is an important aspect. confusing nations with states seems to be part of the leftist agenda.


Their war on language is never-ending. And from my perspective their end goal is absolute inversion. I don’t want to pollute your thread with that side-discussion but would love to have that side discussion!


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## Goddo.F (May 26, 2022)

dreamtime said:


> think I will update the OP, since this is an important aspect. confusing nations with states seems to be part of the leftist agenda.


YES absolutely ... this is a KEY thread.  The confusion, dilution, misleading, lies etc begins with the words used.  This links back to the articles and work on Latin.  The forgetting of words and language along with other cultural aspects, acts to further weaken identity etc.


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## BusyBaci (May 26, 2022)

A very well researched topic about the Ottoman Empire. I have really nothing to add to it with my post, everything is true like you described it.

The only off-topic remark I have is that you're describing an Empire. And all the Empires throughout history ruled with a strong fist over their subjects. There were many rebellions against the Ottoman Empire especially in the Balkans, from Hungary to Egypt. People have a tendency to be free and do not like to be told how they should live, behave, believe or pay tribute towards somebody else. Empires have a tendency to solve these malcontents through military responses and crush the rebellions.  

Let's not forget that many nations in the Balkans were forced economically to change their religion form Christianity or Orthodoxy into Islam, through a hard belief tax system. Everyone who was to be a believer of a religion other than Islam, had to pay a family tax. I won't be so fast to claim that different religions were peacefully coexisting together withing the Ottoman Empire. There were clear tendencies to break free from political and religious control. Free men don't like any kind of control in any of it's forms.

I do agree though about the infiltration of the Ottoman Empire by the Freemasons until they brought it down, so they could enslave people through their debt-based modern model of a society. It seems that people went from rain to ice hail, things get easier on an individual level but they have to sacrifice more liberties and god given freedoms.


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## dreamtime (May 27, 2022)

Ludwig von Mises discusses the differences between patriotism, nationalism, militarism, liberalism, etatism/statism, etc. in his book "Omnipotent Government: Rise of the Total State".

He tracks down the roots of nationalism to liberalism - the ideology of the enlightenment with the goal of uniting the nations of the old world as free citizens with their natural rights, under a free-market economy and limited state. Nationalism is a perverted form of patriotism and liberalism.

"Neither should nationalism be confused with the striving for popular government, national self-determination and political autonomy. When the German nineteenth-century liberals aimed at a substitution of a democratic government of the whole German nation for the tyrannical rule of thirty-odd princes, they did not harbor any hostile designs against other nations. They wanted to get rid of despotism and to establish parliamentary government."​​Similarily, Murray Rothbard writes:

"Since most men tend to love their homeland, the identification of that land and its people with the State was a means of making natural patriotism work to the State’s advantage. If “Ruritania” was being attacked by “Walldavia,” the first task of the State and its intellectuals was to convince the people of Ruritania that the attack was really upon them and not simply upon the ruling caste. In this way, a war between rulers was converted into a war between peoples, with each people coming to the defense of its rulers in the erroneous belief that the rulers were defending them. This device of “nationalism” has only been successful, in Western civilization, in recent centuries; it was not too long ago that the mass of subjects regarded wars as irrelevant battles between various sets of nobles."​
This explains why nationalism was an important ideology, in order to create nation states.

In practice, liberalism quickly turned into nationalism and militarism. Especially in the countries where different nations claimed sovereignty to the same area (Eastern Europe for example).

To quote von Mises:

"The most important event in the history of the last hundred years is the displacement of liberalism by etatism. Etatism appears in two forms: socialism and interventionism. Both have in common the goal of subordinating the individual unconditionally to the state, the social apparatus of compulsion and coercion. (...)​​Etatism too, like liberalism in earlier days, originated in Western Europe and only later came into Germany. (...)​​Etatism assigns to the state the task of guiding the citizens and of holding them in tutelage. It aims at restricting the individual’s freedom to act. It seeks to mold his destiny and to vest all initiative in the government alone. It came into Germany from the West. Saint Simon, Owen, Fourier, Pecqueur, Sismondi, Auguste Comte laid its foundations. Lorenz von Stein was the first author to bring the Germans comprehensive information concerning these new doctrines. (...)​​The essential teaching of liberalism is that social cooperation and the division of labor can be achieved only in a system of private ownership of the means of production, i.e., within a market society, or capitalism. All the other principles of liberalism—democracy, personal freedom of the individual, freedom of speech and of the press, religious tolerance, peace among the nations—are consequences of this basic postulate. They can be realized only within a society based on private property."​
A good explanation of etatism or statism is found in a book by Murray Rothbard (Anatomy of the State);

"The great German sociologist Franz Oppenheimer pointed out that there are two mutually exclusive ways of acquiring wealth; one, the above way of production and exchange, he called the “economic means". The other way is simpler in that it does not require productivity; it is the way of seizure of another’s goods or services by the use of force and violence. This is the method of one-sided confiscation, of theft of the property of others. This is the method which Oppenheimer termed “the political means” to wealth. (...)​​We are now in a position to answer more fully the question: what is the State? The State, in the words of Oppenheimer, is the “organization of the political means”; it is the systematization of the predatory process over a given territory. (...)​​The State provides a legal, orderly, systematic channel for the predation of private property; it renders certain, secure, and relatively “peaceful” the lifeline of the parasitic caste in society. Since production must always precede predation, the free market is anterior to the State. The State has never been created by a “social contract”; it has always been born in conquest and exploitation."​​So the problem with focusing on nationalism is that nationalism was merely a means to an end for creating statist nation states with absolute power over the individual. This is what differentiates our times from the time of 500 years ago.

The Ottoman Empire is a good example of an empire based on individual liberties and the free market. The emperors created frameworks primarily for creating more harmonious interactions between individuals, but it didn't dictat how people lived their lifes in all details. Such an autocratic Empire naturally comes with restrictions of freedom and liberty, but these restrictions were minor compared with today. Only with the rise of the democratic, parlamentiary nation state did people start to become fully owned by the state.

So in the end it wasn't nationalism that brought the old empires down - it was statism, the ideology of the democratic nation state. This ideology was based on the movement of the enlightenment, controlled by secret socities. Liberalism was the bait-and-switch offer to the intellectuals that prepared the revolutions. The next evolution of nationalist statism is international statism, i.e. the "New World Order" government. Blaming nationalism instead of statism plays in the hand of the elites who want to replace nations with a "global" order.



BusyBaci said:


> Let's not forget that many nations in the Balkans were forced economically to change their religion form Christianity or Orthodoxy into Islam, through a hard belief tax system. Everyone who was to be a believer of a religion other than Islam, had to pay a family tax. I won't be so fast to claim that different religions were peacefully coexisting together withing the Ottoman Empire. There were clear tendencies to break free from political and religious control. Free men don't like any kind of control in any of it's forms.



I think when analyzing history, it's important not to take sides. We can only compare very broad developments. This come with compromises. Religion was the primary means of uniting a society in the past - not nationalist ideologies. So the Ottoman Emperors used Islam to force a certain unity within the borders of their Empire. This came with downsides, but also made certain developments possible and offered a certain stability of the Empire to outside influences and conquests.

As we can see from history, the age of autocratic and big centralized Empires was already a devolution, and came with massive problems.

The important distinction is not to claim that the Ottoman Empire was perfect and people were living in absolute harmony. Rather, when comparing the overall society with today, we see more signs of individual freedom and liberties.

The only reason that the Ottoman Empire was dissolved from within was the fact that many people started to become unhappy with the developments. The old order was based on the economic stability and luxuries. As long as a certain quality of life was there, people likely didn't care about the political structure of the Empire. There is a reason the intellectuals writing about their life in the Ottoman Empire considered the first decades of the Empire to be the golden age, and then everything only got worse every century. The inhabitants were well aware of their heritage, and about quality of life becoming worse over time.

When the Industrial Revolution and militarism from the West started to destabilize this order, the economic foundation of the Ottoman Empire broke away, revealing many problems of their society - suddenly, things that people could deal with before, became unacceptable. And thus they joined the liberal movements to break free from their "autocratic emperors", not realizing that things would get worse in the end.

Just like with the next economic crisis, people will look for scapegoats, and they will rightfully demand changes. This motivation for change is sadly always channeled into political structures acceptable and planned by the PTB.


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## dreamtime (May 27, 2022)

Here's an interesting paper discussing the Roman origins of the Ottomans:
​https://projects.iq.harvard.edu/files/riverbed_seashore/files/kafadar_2009.pdf

"The quasi-amnesia in modern scholarship regarding the once-abundant usage of “Rumi” is deeply rooted in the preference, long predating Turkish nationalism, for the wholesale designation of the Ottomans, and of Turcophone Muslims of the Ottoman Empire, as “Turks”—a preference manifested since the late medieval era in both European and, to a lesser but significant extent, many non-Turkish Middle Eastern or Balkan languages (Greek and Arabic, for instance). Such a designation remained standard despite the countervailing preference among those very Ottomans and their educated urban Turcophone subjects for calling themselves not “Turks” but “Osmanlæ” or “Rumi.”​​It seems it's difficult to find a country where people didn't call themselves Roman:

The designations “Rum” and “Rumi” were also common in Iran, Central Asia, and India and are even attested in Indonesia. Bayram Khan (1504?–61), statesman and contributor to the flourishing Chagatai literature in India in the sixteenth century, writes of the lands of Rum as being “all the way over there”. A Bolognese sailor who was in South Asia with the Portuguese in the first decade of that century relates that Diu was called “Divobandirrumi,” presumably because of the preponderance of Rumis.​


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## trismegistus (May 29, 2022)

*Minarets in the Islamic World*




​From Worldhistory.org


> A minaret is a feature of Islamic architecture and is the place from where the call to prayer is sent out. They are also known as a _manār _or _manāra _in Arabic, meaning *place of fire or light (nar or nur)*. According to scholars, the expression _manāra_ was adapted from the Aramaic language, which when translated means “*candlestick*”. Another literal Arabic connotation for minaret is _Sawma'a_ -'cloister' or 'cell'- a spiritual reference to the shining light of the lamp in the cloister. The less-often used Arabic phrase _mi'dhana _more appropriately conveys the purpose of the minaret.​




The Origin and History of the Minaret on JSTOR
​One of my more vivid memories of Egypt was the call to prayer blasted through speaker systems at the top of these minarets.  Ostensibly before modern electric sound technology - the Imam would issue the call to prayer standing at the top of one of these.  I always wondered how it was that even if the Imam was at the very top of this tower, the sound would travel much farther than the immediate area underneath the tower.  After all - if I climbed to the top of a 5-6 story building and began singing to people on the ground, I can't imagine I would be able to project the sound very far.  

Unsurprisingly when I went to find some basic information about them, these interesting notes popped up.  Etymologically - _Minaret _is closer to a candlestick, a place of fire, or the shining of a lamp in a cloister.  Historians do not seem to have a satisfactory answer as to how this term came to be, though as many readers who are familiar with the research on this site, it doesn't seem that farfetched at all.


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## SonofaBor (May 30, 2022)

dreamtime said:


> Austrian school Economist Ludwig von Mises discusses the differences between patriotism, nationalism, militarism, liberalism and statism in his book "Omnipotent Government: Rise of the Total State". He tracks down the roots of nationalism to liberalism - the ideology of the enlightenment with the goal of uniting the nations of the old world as free citizens with their natural rights, under a free-market economy and limited state. Nationalism is a perverted form of patriotism and liberalism. In practice, liberalism quickly turned into nationalism and militarism. Especially in the countries where different nations claimed souverignty to the same area (Eastern Europe for example). The problem with focusing on nationalism is that nationalism was merely a means to an end for creating nation states with absolute power over the individual.





dreamtime said:


> So in the end it wasn't nationalism that brought the old empires down - it was statism, the ideology of the democratic nation state. This ideology was based on the movement of the enlightenment, controlled by secret socities. Liberalism was the bait-and-switch offer to the intellectuals that prepared the revolutions. Blaming nationalism instead of statism plays in the hand of the elites who want to replace nations with a "global" order.



I haven't had time to read carefully through this entire thread. But I do want to note something very important about nationalism that I don't see addressed.

McLuhan and Anderson have pretty much proven that the collective consciousness, call it liberal/patriotic statism is impossible without the newspaper. The radio furthered this sense of collective consciousness. Hitler and Roosevelt were probably the greatest radio stars in history.  

The nervous system across a vast region gets synchronized, not to chiming bells or the wonder of the stars, but to a specific frequency, message and its form of life.  

Such a manufactured consciousness comes with single points of control. Messages can be edited, like messing with DNA. The controller class has, thus, two points of critical control: the medium itself and the signal.  

As much as I like the Austrian economists, they fail to consider fundamental technologies and their control in the production of the citizenry that they bemoan.  Nostalgia emerged in nationalism as the dominate sentiment.  (The Old Time Radio Hour; the Grand Ol' Opry, etc...).  It also infects academic research.


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## windmilljoe (May 30, 2022)

I found this a very telling piece by Machiavelli.

_In a city or province which he has seized, a new Prince should make everything new._

 Should anyone become the ruler either of a city or of a state, especially if he has no sure footing in it and it is suited neither for the civic life characteristic of a monarchy nor yet that of a republic, the best thing he can do in order to retain such a principality, given that he be a new prince, is to organize everything in that state afresh; e.g. in its cities to appoint new governors, with new titles and a new authority, the governors themselves being new men; to make the rich poor and the poor rich; as did David when he became king,_ ‘ who filled the hungry with good things and the rich sent empty away’_ ; as well build new cities, to destroy those already built, and to move the inhabitants from one place to another far distant from it; in short, to leave nothing of that province intact, and nothing in it, neither rank, nor institution, nor form of government, nor wealth, except it be held by such as recognize that it come from you.

His aim should be to emulate Philip of Macedon, the father of Alexander, who, starting as a little king, by these methods made himself prince of Greece. Of him a writer says that he moved men from province to province as shepherds move their sheep.

Such methods are exceedingly cruel, and are repugnant to any community, not only to a Christian one, but to any composed of men. It behooves, therefor, every man to shun them, and to prefer rather to live as private citizens than as a king with such ruination of men to his score. None the less, for the sort of man who is unwilling to take up this first course,of well doing, it is expedient, should he wish to hold what he has, to enter on the path of wrongdoing. Actually, however, most men prefer to steer a middle course, which is very harmful; for they know not to how to be wholly good nor yet to be wholly bad, as in the next chapter will be shown by means of an example._ 

Niccolo Machiavelli, the discourses._


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## Gladius (May 31, 2022)

The thread has somewhat repeating labels such as 'harmony', 'freedom', 'individual' as to describe the Ottoman empire. I understand it's said in a relative way and not to indicate perfection or utopia.
But see, I think that it's wrong as well, as it's being viewed from an outside perspective. 

I'm quite familiar with Middle eastern history and personally with descendants of people who lived under Ottoman rule, and as a boy I even met the old people who lived under them directly. 

1. They, the Ottomans, were always hated in every region they ruled. The Arabs had always referred to them as Turks, many years prior to the Turkish nationalism. I think the 'Roman elites' didn't engage with the foreign tribes in their empire, they left this job to the Turks.
2. The Turks gave this 'relative freedom' spoken about here, not out of wisdom or higher understanding of old ways.
First and most, they just couldn't break the local agendas of every region - the locals would do anything to disobey or bypass the Turkish rules.
Second, the Turks used highly exploitative methods against the Arab peasants, ("Fallakh") who were commoners seasonally migrating to work the fields for a governor assigned by the Turks. Those governors were often Turks sent on a charter from the King, with unofficial permit to exploit the land. If they succeeded, they'd be granted lands and title in another region, as they're already despised in the region where they "succeeded".

In the areas of Syria-Israel, there are many Arab villages who are in fact descendants to Turkish families who took over an expelled tribe, as a reward for service.

3. In Europe, there is this old pattern of the people siding with the nobles for a cause, and in general there was a vast nobility system spanning many centuries, in which nobles were quite engaged with their commoners, and made sure to be seen by them for popularity. The Church would also give blessings to nobles, verifying their rank among the people.

In the Ottoman lands, the last honored noble was Saladin. You'll not find Ottoman rulers remembered for praise in the lands outside Turkey. They were seen as a nuisance, and the Turks knew it and played along. In Arab culture, it is the *elders who decide things. *
For a Turk to outweigh a decision of a tribe elder would mean severe disrespect, therefore the Turks preferred to let the elders deal with their own. Does it mean they had a good time? It's likely that those elders where more brutal than what a Turk governor could've done instead.

Note that Arab tribes have great differences in tradition, laws and dialect between them, even if they live in the same small region. Tribal war and wars within the tribe are not strange to them, and there's rarely peace there since centuries. The Turks had no need to try and control it, they did a good job wasting each other for them.

Another factor is the rise of Bedouins, very warlike nomadic tribes who came out of southern Arabia, and raided the Levant extensively in the 18-19th century, until they settled. They instilled a system of ransom and looting all throughout the region, and no standing army could defeat them until the British came with modern guns. The Bedouins still do this until today, collecting protection fees from businesses all the way from Egypt to Syria.


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## dreamtime (May 31, 2022)

Gladius said:


> 1. They, the Ottomans, were always hated in every region they ruled. The Arabs had always referred to them as Turks, many years prior to the Turkish nationalism. I think the 'Roman elites' didn't engage with the foreign tribes in their empire, they left this job to the Turks.



It seems it is necessary to differentiate between the Ottoman rulers and the culture/society at large, and also between different ages of the Empire. For example, one could praise the early Islam culture in the Muslim lands and find a connection to the old-world spirit, but criticize the Ottoman rulers.

The Ottoman Turks seem be by quite aggressive in their conquest of other Arab Empires, so it's plausible they weren't really loved.

If you are correct, then the Ottomans ruled over a large heterogenic empire due to their brutal conquest of the arab lands and their goal was even more control, but they had to accept certain limits to their rule.

Without knowing too much about Ottoman rule, there's something that doesn't make much sense to me on first glance:

Many people still lived in relative autonomy throughout the century, as shown by the decentral governance style and the heterogenity of the Empire. But the Empire didn't break apart earlier and lived on for 600 years, and only the last 200 years were really turbulent. How were the Ottomans able to keep the Empire stable politically for 300 or 400 years, if they were hated everywhere? Such an Empire would be easy prey for outside kingdoms, even if they would only slowly engulf the border areas of the Empire.

I think it's impossible to keep an Empire for hundreds of years if it's both decentral, heterogenic and the rulers are hated by the majority.

I think it's plausible to suggest that in the first centuries of the Ottoman Empire, the Ottoman rule was regarded as a sometimes annoying necessity by most, a great thing by the elites, and an evil thing by a small marginalized minority, including Christian groups. Since trade was a very important feature in the world between 1300 and 1700, streamlining the trade and governance structure between many fragmented kingdoms was likely a benefit when it comes to quality of life.

I wonder whether maybe the negative aspects of the Ottoman Empire only started to manifest in the so-called Decline-period starting between 1700 and 1800, when the western forces started to wear down the Ottoman Empire.

It seems that there's indirect evidence to argue in favor of the Ottoman Empire, from a broader perspective. For example, Jane Hathaway writes in "The Arab Lands under Ottoman Rule":

The condition of a society’s most vulnerable, finally, provides telling clues to the overall well-being of that society. It is thus all the more frustrating that so few traces remain of the experience of the destitute and disabled of the Ottoman Arab provinces. Such evidence as we have suggests that they were fed and maintained, if not rehabilitated, by their communities. This in turn contributes to the impression that the social infrastructure of the Arab provinces was fundamentally sound, particularly in the absence of wrenching political and social dislocations. Towards the end of the eighteenth century, however, provincial society began to experience just this sort of dislocation, as the following chapter will explain.​​It seems the Ottoman Empire was pretty stable in 1750 after internal conflicts of reorganization. Only when the western Empires started to overthrow the Ottoman rule, did the Empire visibly decline, and this likely made the Ottoman rulers show their worst face of authoritarian rulership and quality of life declined rapidly, with the hate being directed at the ruling class.

By the middle of the 18th century, the Ottoman economy and with it, Ottoman society, had regained a degree of stability not seen in some 150 years. The great social upheavals of the seventeenth century had come to an end as the Ottoman economy stabilized. Although debasement of the Ottoman silver akche continued to be a problem and the use of foreign currency became endemic, the galloping inflation that had characterized the era of the Jelali rebellions no longer plagued Ottoman society. And while increasing quantities of European goods entered Ottoman lands and French ships carried an ever larger proportion of Ottoman trade, the commercial sector nonetheless prospered; meanwhile, agricultural yields and, in consequence, land tax revenues had rebounded from the crisis. At the same time, key sectors of Ottoman society that had been in ferment during the preceding century regularized, leading to a far greater degree of social stability. On the one hand, the spread of the life-tenure tax farm, or malikane, at the beginning of the eighteenth century helped to cement the influence of provincial ayan. On the other, the cessation of significant military activity on all but the Iranian front during the century’s middle decades naturally reduced the number of hired mercenaries among the soldiery, thus eliminating a major source of political and social discontent. For their part, members of the permanent regiments of soldiery in the imperial capital and the provinces alike concentrated on commercial ventures and revenue collection. Meanwhile, the ulema, having survived the demographic flux of the seventeenth century and the excesses of the puritanical Kadızadeli movement, retrenched. By 1750, a few wealthy ulema families dominated most of the top positions in the mosque and madrasa hierarchy of the central Ottoman lands.​


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## Gladius (May 31, 2022)

dreamtime said:


> It seems it is necessary to differentiate between the Ottoman rulers and the culture/society at large, and also between different ages of the Empire. For example, one could praise the early Islam culture in the Muslim lands and find a connection to the old-world spirit, but criticize the Ottoman rulers.


In a very general way, I'd describe Ottoman as post-reset and 'Islamic' as pre-reset. Despite the long rule, almost every great or small momument in the near east, gets attributed by the locals to the Islamic. Critical eyes such as ours will see that many of those are recent, therefore must be built by Ottomans, but the locals however have a tendency to ignore it.



dreamtime said:


> The Ottoman Turks seem be by quite aggressive in their conquest of other Arab Empires, so it's plausible they weren't really loved.
> 
> If you are correct, then the Ottomans ruled over a large heterogenic empire due to their brutal conquest of the arab lands and their goal was even more control, but they had to accept certain limits to their rule.


To the contrary, I don't think they were aggressive conquerers. More likely, they took over an existing process. To the thousands of local tribes under their influence, it was not viewed as a conquest. The lands between N.Africa to Baghdad were indeed mostly decentralized. In their perspective, things work this way:
1. The tribe is the 'nation', there is no aspiration for a tribe to conquer, annex or annihilate another. Tribes do not expand, but rather gain more influence over others through protection fees or vassal status.


dreamtime said:


> How were the Ottomans able to keep the Empire stable politically for 300 or 400 years, if they were hated everywhere? Such an Empire would be easy prey for outside kingdoms, even if they would only slowly engulf the border areas of the Empire.


2. Due to #1, no political entity serves as a competition to the Empire. There is no desire by any faction to replace it or dismantle it. At the same time, tribal factions do not actually seek independence from the Empire. In the Arab mind, it is understood that nobody is "free" but the strongest of all. Everyone has to pay someone. In a very warlike region, raiding was way more common than any part of Europe. To survive, every tribe must pay protection fees.
3. Union of tribes, an alliance, is only necassary against an outside force which does not respect core values or Islam. Saladin is glorified as the real unifier of Arabs, as he pushed the enemy not only from Turkey, but from Arab lands too.
Aside from such threats, there is no reason for any tribe to ally or collaborate with another.

For reference, a side fact not very known: In the Israeli Independence War of 1948, as many Arabs were killed by other Arabs as by Jews. The clans failed to collaborate against the common enemy, and as the land was in 'open season', they began turning on each other, especially to settle down old blood feuds, instead of defending against the invaders.



dreamtime said:


> I think it's plausible to suggest that in the first centuries of the Ottoman Empire, the Ottoman rule was regarded as a sometimes annoying necessity by most, a great thing by the elites, and an evil thing by a small marginalized minority, including Christian groups. Since trade was a very important feature in the world between 1300 and 1700, streamlining the trade and governance structure between many fragmented kingdoms was likely a benefit when it comes to quality of life.


Arab culture is indeed a very merchant-like culture. As long as the rulers make it possible to trade and keep local values, they do not care who sits on the throne. I don't know what was their approach in the 1500s, but there's nothing indicating that the locals loved their empire more than they did in the later era.



dreamtime said:


> I wonder whether maybe the negative aspects of the Ottoman Empire only started to manifest in the so-called Decline-period starting between 1700 and 1800, when the western forces started to wear down the Ottoman Empire.


Possibly, it was already negative, just became even more negative.
Let's also not forget the possibility, that due to phantom history hypothesis, what we call early Ottoman, was not even Ottoman...


dreamtime said:


> It seems that there's indirect evidence to argue in favor of the Ottoman Empire, from a broader perspective. For example, Jane Hathaway writes in "The Arab Lands under Ottoman Rule":
> 
> The condition of a society’s most vulnerable, finally, provides telling clues to the overall well-being of that society. It is thus all the more frustrating that so few traces remain of the experience of the destitute and disabled of the Ottoman Arab provinces.​


I think, but not certain, that he's referring here to the Fallakhs.
In the feudal Arab system, there were different classes, usually nomads, peasants, merchants.
The peasants, Fallakhs, were unlike the European peasantry which worked its land year-round and paid tribute.  The Fallakhs were drafted from the poor, to work government's owned lands on a seasonal basis. Those people were severly poorer than other Arabs, and their wellbeing was totally in the hands of the governor. In your quote, I think he refers that the locals took measures to ensure the wellbeing of the Fallakhs, when the Empire did not care to. Possibly the result of a donation campaign often found in Islamic societies.

The Fallakhs were so lowly, that many families remained in this status to this very day. In Jordan/Palestine their descendants are still recruited seasonally and are treated like some Hindu low caste.


dreamtime said:


> ​It seems the Ottoman Empire was pretty stable in 1750 after internal conflicts of reorganization. Only when the western Empires started to overthrow the Ottoman rule, did the Empire visibly decline, and this likely made the Ottoman rulers show their worst face of authoritarian rulership and quality of life declined rapidly, with the hate being directed at the ruling class.
> ​



We don't really know much about the average tribal quality of life prior to this time, so it's hard to confirm.
Authoritarian behavior was indeed visible prior and after WW1, when the Turkish 'secret police' began to actually go around the lands looking for spies and traitors.


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## Daniel (May 31, 2022)

We have to ask when the Ottoman Empire actually became an "Islamic" Empire. Was Suleiman a Muslim? Mehmet?
While it is certainly true that the Islamic Turks persecuted non-Muslim and non-Turkish people in the Ottoman Empire in the 19th/20th centuries, was that always the case?
Edit: In one of his volumes, Fomenko deals with the Conquest of Constantinople. (The English translation was available, but it depicts a contemporaneous image of the event):

Notice any "anomalies"?
Here are just a couple:
1) The Ottoman banners/flags


So, no sign of crescent moons. 
2) Hagia Sophia:

Hagia Sophia is a "Gothic-style" Church, rather than a domed Church.

Mehmet II had coins minted. Here is just one..

The coin depicts Mehmet, other people, and animals. All are against Islamic Law. (In fact, the coin looks more like something from the "Graeco-Roman world" than what we understand as the "15th century" today.

And here's just part of the detail from a sword of Suleiman.

Again, it depicts animals.(And creatures from Fantasy too.) This is strictly forbidden under Islamic Law.


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## dreamtime (May 31, 2022)

Daniel said:


> In one of his volumes, Fomenko deals with the Conquest of Constantinople.



I remember Sylvie talked about something similar in one of her videos. The idea was that back then Islam and Christianity were still somewhat unified, and no stictly separated religions.


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## Quiahuitl (May 31, 2022)

Many people are unaware that the Koran has a chapter on Jesus and calls him the light the truth and the way (more or less).  It also says in the Koran that at the end times Jesus will appear at God's right hand. No mention of the prophet.  There's also a chapter on Mary.

I've not read very many chapters of it.  When I first bought a copy many years ago I literally said 'Go ahead and impress me,' closed my eyes and opened it on a random page.  The page was talking about Gog and Magog, who are mentioned extensively in British folklore, and I thought 'Wow. This is definitely a magical book.'


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## Armouro (Jul 4, 2022)

Funny. I had just finished listening to this general overview of this subject. Sunset of the Ottomans (Myth20c - Ep240)
My first thought was that these people were the basis for the Atreides and Fremen relationship in Herbert's Dune sagas. Especially the breeding program of the concubines of the Sultans of the Ottoman Empire. These women and their culture as secret movers and shakers of empire is exactly what Herbert shows the Benne Gesserit to be.
I find that correlation fascinating, because many believe Herbert to be portraying a purely Islamic culture; without understanding that his entire saga is a tale of the Ottoman Empire; a breed of peoples that used the blood of European "nobles" to augment a jihadic Islamic empire.
I am new to the depths of this area of history; but it appears this thread is a nice place to explore the flavors of thought and opinion on a topic that has so recently come to the fore; for me.


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## TuranSilvanus (Aug 14, 2022)

Otto-man was the Ger-man no?


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## dreamtime (Aug 18, 2022)

In October 1982, a few months after the Israeli invasion of Lebanon, ARAMCO World Magazine published a collection of articles called "Paradise Lost: A Eulogy for Lebanon," about the ante-bellum time in the Lebanon between 1945-1982, which was once part of the Ottoman Empire. Apparently it was a time of innocence, abundance and prosperity.




This photo shows an exterior view of the Sofar Grand Hotel in the Lebanese village of Sofar, about 30 kilometers east of the capital Beirut, at the time the most famous hotel in the Middle East.

After the French occupation following World War II, Lebanon flourished between 1950 and 1980, experiencing a kind of cultural, economic and material renaissance. Probably in connection with the golden age of the Ottoman Empire, this period is called the golden age of Lebanon.

The feeling of having lost a paradisiacal life exists in many cultures, but in Asia and the Middle East in particular, these glorious times were not long ago, and quite a few countries still lived in the living memory of the old world until a few decades ago.

When a culture's connection with its roots is cut, as in this case by the Israeli invasion, there is a sudden rupture and the realization that something essential has been irrevocably lost. Although the time before was certainly not perfect, people's memories show that there is a qualitative difference between before and after. As soon as people lose their roots to their own culture and history, much of what constitutes life disappears, and the desire to regain that connection arises. Material prosperity is only a consequence of this connection to one's roots, and when wealth is pursued as an end in itself, true quality of life can never emerge.

The sentimental memory of the Lebanese of the pre-1982 era probably reflects much more than is apparent at first glance: in the last 200 years, most cultures or nations have lost their own roots as a result of one or more orchestrated crises, and have been in a state of inner emptiness ever since. Only by reconnecting with the past can something emerge that forms a foundation for human civilization.


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## dreamtime (Aug 19, 2022)

The above also fits very well with the claim that Islam was created by the Catholics to destroy both Christianity and Judaism.

The Lebanon was primarily Christian until recently, and the "Golden Age" had a Christian upper class that ruled the country.

This information came from Alberto Rivera, former Jesuit priest after his conversion to Protestant Christianity. It is excerpted from “The Prophet,” published by Chick Publications, PO Box 662, Chino CA 91708. Since its publication, after several unsuccessful attempts on his life, he died suddenly from food poisoning. His testimony should not be silenced. Dr. Rivera speaks to us still …​​"The great untapped source of manpower that could do this job was the children of Ishmael. The poor Arabs fell victim to one of the most clever plans ever devised by the powers of darkness. Early Christians went everywhere with the gospel setting up small churches, but they met heavy opposition. Both the Jews and the Roman government persecuted the believers in Christ to stop their spread. But the Jews rebelled against Rome, and in 70 AD, Roman armies under General Titus smashed Jerusalem and destroyed the great Jewish temple which was the heart of Jewish worship…in fulfillment of Christ’s prophecy in Matthew 24:2." (...)​
"Another problem was the true Christians in North Africa who preached the gospel. Roman Catholicism was growing in power, but would not tolerate opposition. Somehow the Vatican had to create a weapon to eliminate both the Jews and the true Christian believers who refused to accept Roman Catholicism. Lookng to North Africa, they saw the multitudes of Arabs as a source of manpower to do their dirty work. Some Arabs had become Roman Catholic, and could be used in reporting information to leaders in Rome. Others were used in an underground spy network to carry out Rome’s master plan to control the great multitudes of Arabs who rejected Catholicism. When ‘St Augustine’ appeared on the scene, he knew what was going on. His monasteries served as bases to seek out and destroy Bible manuscripts owned by the true Christians." (...)​​“The Vatican wanted to create a messiah for the Arabs, someone they could raise up as a great leader, a man with charisma whom they could train, and eventually unite all the non-Catholic Arabs behind him, creating a mighty army that would ultimately capture Jerusalem for the pope. (...)​​“As time went by, the power of Islam became tremendous – Jews and true Christians were slaughtered, and Jerusalem fell into their hands. Roman Catholics were never attacked, nor were their shrines, during this time. But when the pope asked for Jerusalem, he was surprised at their denial! The Arab generals had such military success that they could not be intimidated by the pope – nothing could stand in the way of their own plan. (...)​​The pope realized what they had created was out of control when he heard they were calling “His Holiness” an infidel. The Muslim generals were determined to conquer the world for Allah and now they turned toward Europe. Islamic ambassadors approached the pope and asked for papal bulls to give them permission to invade European countries.​​“The Vatican was outraged; war was inevitable. Temporal power and control of the world was considered the basic right of the pope. He wouldn’t think of sharing it with those whom he considered heathens.​​“The pope raised up his armies and called them crusades to hold back the children of Ishmael from grabbing Catholic Europe. The crusades lasted centuries and Jerusalem slipped out of the pope’s hands.​​“Turkey fell and Spain and Portugal were invaded by Islamic forces. In Portugal, they called a mountain village “Fatima” in honor of Muhammad’s daughter, never dreaming it would become world famous.​​“Years later when the Muslim armies were poised on the islands of Sardinia and Corsica, to invade Italy, there was a serious problem. The Islamic generals realized they were too far extended. It was time for peace talks. One of the negotiators was Francis of Assisi.​​“As a result, the Muslims were allowed to occupy Turkey in a “Christian” world, and the Catholics were allowed to occupy Lebanon in the Arab world. It was also agreed that the Muslims could build mosques in Catholic countries without interference as long as Roman Catholicism could flourish Arab countries.​​How The Vatican Created Islam, by Former Jesuit Priest, Alberto Rivera​​Also interesting that Lebanon was basically traded with Turkey between the Catholics and the Muslims, both part of the same "deep state" structures back then, trying to destroy the original form of Christianity. The original form of Christianity to me looks more and more like the sole spiritual heritage of humanity.

Before the Muslims and the Ottoman Empire, the Near East was probably Christian, with an Arab flavor. And this cultural flavor was later used to create Islam.

So I would say Islam wasn't invented out of thin air, but was based on the original "religion" that existed on earth, and there was probably an Arab way of life that was similar to early Christianity, but based on the Arab cultural values and perspectives.


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## Silveryou (Aug 19, 2022)

Daniel said:


> We have to ask when the Ottoman Empire actually became an "Islamic" Empire. Was Suleiman a Muslim? Mehmet?
> While it is certainly true that the Islamic Turks persecuted non-Muslim and non-Turkish people in the Ottoman Empire in the 19th/20th centuries, was that always the case?
> Edit: In one of his volumes, Fomenko deals with the Conquest of Constantinople. (The English translation was available, but it depicts a contemporaneous image of the event):
> View attachment 23085
> ...


It's hard to believe in the conclusions of this thread when we actually see how messed up history really is.

This is something I found some time ago on the website of the Metropolitan Museum (https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/192693):




Its title is _Cassone with painted front panel depicting the Conquest of Trebizond _(after ca. 1461) and this is the description given by the museum itself:

This impressive marriage chest is said to have come from the Palazzo Strozzi, and it has the Strozzi emblem of a flacon perched on a caltrop (a spiky metal weapon) with a banderole inscribed ME[Z]ZE—probably a reference to the half-moons in their armorial device. The form of the cassone evokes classical sarcophagi. The painted front does not belong to this chest but is contemporary with it. *It shows a battle before the city of Trebizond; Constantinople is seen at the upper left. In the foreground is a battle between Ottoman and Byzantine troops. Trebizond fell to the Ottomans in 1461, but the ruler seated beneath a canopy is identified as Tamerlane (ca. 1336–1405), the Mongolian emperor who defeated the Ottoman sultan at Ankara in 1402.* *These historical anachronisms have not been explained*, but the advance of the Ottomans was something that preoccupied all of Europe—not least those with mercantile interests in the Middle East.

Here below is Tamerlane, identified by the name (not looking very 'mongol', according to modern standards):



​Not only that but the weapons and clothes of both the armies look totally oriental. Byzantines were always represented very similar to a mix of Romans and Greeks as they show us in pictures, but not here.



​And I doubt the location is Trebizond, since every detail points to Constantinople and the opposite coast, which is demonstrated by the presence of a fortress called 'LOSCUTARIO', corresponding to modern Uskudar (Üsküdar - Wikipedia).



​So here we clearly see Tamerlane in a battle against the Ottomans, unless the true Ottoman was Tamerlane himself. To be fair the city where the battle rages on seems to have the name Trebisond upon it, but there are other cities/fortresses depicted with their names on what seems to be the Bosporos. I cannot read and/or recognise their names though. So the question is if this battle really happened near Constantinople, as the painting implies (and then we have another huge geographical problem regarding Trebisond which was not where it's supposed to be), or it's just 'poetic license' and the poet/painter depicted the Bosporus but decided to add Trebisond out of the blue or...

... or it's just the ignorance of people in that age, the favourite 'explanation' by our modern geniuses. Here below Trebisond with its almost unreadable name:






​edit: a quick addiction to identify the Bosporus location. We have also PERA, modern Beyoğlu (Beyoğlu - Wikipedia). It is supposed to be an islamic town at that point (since it was conquered in 1453 by Mehmet II) but it still has the Genoese Saint George's Cross upon it:



​There's another fortress on the painting, but I cannot identify it and its name is not clear. Let me know if somebody has some suggestions. Here the picture:



​edit2: an aereal view:


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## Jd755 (Aug 19, 2022)

Silveryou said:


> It's hard to believe in the conclusions of this thread when we actually see how messed up history really is.
> 
> This is something I found some time ago on the website of the Metropolitan Museum (https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/192693):
> 
> ...


Only had a glance but this article provides some detail.
Early Modern Military Architecture in the Ottoman Empire - Nexus Network Journal


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## Silveryou (Aug 19, 2022)

So @kd-755 showed me some more detailed page in a previous edition of the same website, when the museum was still worried of giving informations to us mortals (Art Object). It's definitively a depiction of the Bosporus in all it selements... aside Trebizond! Seriously?

_Purchased in 1913 from the Florentine dealer Stefano Bardini (1836–1922), this elaborate chest, or cassone, has long enjoyed status as one of the few fifteenth-century objects of its kind to survive intact and, moreover, to portray a contemporary historical event—*the conquest of Trebizond, the last outpost of the Byzantine Empire, by Mehmed II in 1461* (for another example of a cassone panel depicting a contemporary historical event, see 07.120.1). *This status has been called into question by a detailed, technical examination undertaken in 2008.* It has now been demonstrated that so far from being intact, various parts of the chest are not integral and that, most importantly, the painted front may originate from another chest. This means that the purported provenance of the chest from Palazzo Strozzi, first asserted by Weisbach [see Ref. 1913], may have no bearing on the interpretation of the scene on the painted front. That the chest itself is connected with some member of the Strozzi family is clear from the emblems that appear on the end pieces, which are original to it: the Strozzi falcon or hawk perched on a caltrop (spiky metal devices that, when scattered on the ground, destabilize the enemy’s horses) with a banderole inscribed ME[Z]ZE—perhaps indicating another Strozzi emblem, the half-moon crescent [see Ref. Nickel 1974]. The inside of the lid and the back of the cassone retain their original stenciled patterns simulating patterned fabric, and the top of the lid is embellished by a gessoed piece of cloth that is gilded and tooled to simulate a runner of cut velvet (this motif is worn, the paint having been almost entirely lost, so that the design is barely legible today)._




_The scene on the painted front is universally recognized as coming from the most active and prestigious workshop for the production of painted cassone in mid-fifteenth-century Florence: that shared by Apollonio di Giovanni and Marco del Buono. Its subject is neither biblical nor mythological, nor even based on a contemporary novella such as those by Boccaccio. Rather, it depicts an event that unfolds before two identifiable cities of the Byzantine Empire. Much work has been done identifying the places shown [see especially Refs. Paribeni 2001, Paribeni 2002, and Lurati 2005]. In the left background, clearly labeled on its walls, is Constantinople._

_

_​
_An attempt has been made by the artist to suggest a number of the city’s landmarks and distinguishing topographical features, some of which are also labeled. There is the Latin church of San Francesco;_

_

_​_the monumental column of Justinian in the Augustaion and *the Egyptian obelisk (evidently topped by a crescent)* in the Hippodrome originally laid out by Emperor Septimus Severus in the third century AD and further embellished by Constantine;_

_



_​_the Hagia Sofia;_

_

_​_the nearby sixth-century church of Saint Irene;_

_

_​_what must be intended either as the Blachernae Palace or its thirteenth-century annex, the Palace of Porphyrogenitus, which served as the imperial residence for the last Byzantine emperors (the fragmentary inscription may possibly have been intended as [PALAZZO] DEILO [IM]PER[AT]ORI);_

_

_​_the Golden Horn—the city’s fabled inlet that was protected by a chain that could be drawn across it—with western ships (carracks) moored next to the Genoese quarter of Pera, the walls of which are dominated by the great circular Galata tower, atop which the Genoese flag can be seen._

_

_​_Other boats in the Golden Horn and the Sea of Marmara may be either Greek dromons or Ottoman._

_

_​_Further back, on the European side of the Bosphorus, is the CHASTEL NVOVO (the "new fortress" of Rumeli Hisari built by Mehmed II in 1451–52 in preparation for the seige of Constantinople; its distinctive towers are still a landmark today)._

_

_​_Across the Bosphorus is another walled city designated as LO SCUTARIO—Scutari, present-day Üsküdar (the name, Skutarion, derived from the leather shields of the Roman soldiers stationed there; it fell to the Ottomans almost a century before Constantinople)._

_

_​_Then, dominating the hill on the right is the walled city of Trebizond (modern-day Trabzon). Located on the southern coast of the Black Sea, it became the seat of a separate Byzantine empire when it was conquered by Alexios Komenos in 1204—the year Constantinople fell to the crusaders—and was the last outpost of the Byzantine Empire following the conquest of Constantinople by the Ottomans in 1453. It fell to the Ottomans in 1461, marking the final demise of Byzantium. *Although hardly an accurate depiction, it seems clear that for his depiction of Constantinople the artist was supplied with descriptions and maps,* such as the one included in Cristoforo Buondelmonti’s Liber insularum Archipelagi of 1420 [see Ref. Pope-Hennessy and Christiansen 1980] as well as, possibly, drawings by that inveterate traveler Cyriac of Ancona and the reports of other visitors to the city [see Ref. Lurati 2005]._

_

_​_Before the walled city of Trebizond is depicted a battle. An encampment of tents is shown on the far right, in front of which the leader of one of the armies is seated on a triumphal chariot drawn by two white horses._

_

_​_He wears a turban, as do other members of his army, including the troops emerging behind Scutari, and he points his white baton towards *a gesticulating, bearded figure who, dressed in blue, wears the sort of cylindrical hat splayed out at the top that was associated in Western Europe with the Byzantine Greeks* [see Ref. Lurati 2005]*; he rides a black steed and is plainly either reporting on the progress of the battle or taking orders.*_

_

_​_Prior to 1980 it was presumed that the figure on the chariot was Mehmed II [see Ref. Weisbach 1913] and that the battle depicted the Ottoman defeat of the Byzantines in 1461—hence the designation of the chest as the Trebizond Cassone. However, as has been pointed out by Paribeni [see Ref. 2001], Trebizond was taken by Mehmed II without a battle: it capitulated without bloodshed. Moreover, *a close examination of the costumes reveals that it is the Ottomans who are being vanquished* (for the costumes, see especially Refs. Paribeni 2001, Paribeni 2002, and Lurati 2005). Clearly shown among the captives and those in retreat are members of the Ottoman elite infantry, the Janissaries, wearing their distinctive white conical hats with the top folded over. Other conical hats are gold, some with a feathered decoration (for similar Turkish costumes, see Cesare Vecellio’s Degli habiti antichi . . . , Venice, 1664, book 7, pp. 297–302)._

_

_​_Their commander is almost certainly the turbaned figure to the left of the melee, dressed in gold, holding a scepter and mounted on a black horse. He is defended by Janissaries, one of whom turns around while pointing with his left hand._

_

_​_Scimitars are wielded by both armies, as are the distinctive recurved composite bows of Ottoman warfare. In front of the triumphal chariot five captives, two of whom kneel, are being presented to the victorious army commanders. The characterization of the two armies should have been enough to refute the common identification of the figure on the triumphal chariot as Mehmed II. And, in fact, a careful examination with the aid of infrared light in 1980 revealed an inscription identifying him as TANVRLANA—Tamerlane, or Timur (1336–1405), the celebrated Mongol emperor and commander who defeated the Ottomans under Bayezid I at Ankara in 1402 (Bayezid was taken prisoner). *The battle, then, would seem to be Tamerlane’s victory over Bayezid at Ankara, but anachronistically shown against the backdrop of Trebizond. *As remarked by Gombrich [see Ref. 1955], "it cannot have been the intention of the painter simply to represent a Greek disaster." And, indeed, the setting of a battle that took place in 1402 in front of a city that fell to the Ottomans in 1461 signals an emblematic intent._

*

*
​_In the minds of Europeans, Tamerlane’s victories assured him a place among the "worthies". As such, his image was included in a fresco cycle of famous men commissioned about 1432 by Cardinal Giordano Orsini for his palace in Rome. _*A number of interpretations have been suggested to explain the apparent anachronisms *_(see the thorough summary in Ref. Krohn 2008)_*. One would have it that the figure is not actually Tamerlane but the Turkmen rival of the Ottomans, Uzun Hasan (1423–1478), who was known in his time as a second Tamerlane *_[see Ref. Paribeni 2001 and Baskins, as reported in Ref. Krohn 2008]_*. *_Uzun Hasan made a pact with Mehmed II not to aid the Byzantine forces and thus to assist the Ottoman conquest of Trebizond. *How this relates to the actual battle scene depicted remains problematic*, but it may be worth noting that the Venetians sought Uzun Hasan as an ally against the Ottomans. What cannot be doubted is the intention to conflate historical events, using the past as a template for the future by reminding viewers that the Ottomans—now a threat to Europe—were not invincible. Paribeni [see Ref. 2001] has indicated a pair of cassoni panels commissioned from the workshop of Apollonio, apparently in 1461, that illustrate the triumph of the Greeks over Xerxes’ invading Persian army in 480–79 BC. Given the date of the commission, there would appear to be a reference to the conquest of Trebizond, the collapse of the Byzantine Empire, and a hoped for reversal. At the Council of Mantua in 1459, Pius II promoted a crusade against the Turks. An army was assembled in Ancona in 1464, but dispersed when Pius died there on August 15. There were, of course, also mercantile interests, and Paribeni [see Ref. 2001] has pointed out that in December 1460 an accord established a Florentine commercial presence in Trebizond. _*The presence on the MMA cassone of the two cities of Constantinople and Trebizond would thus seem to transform Tamerlane’s victory at Ankara in 1402 into an emblematic prognosis for the defeat of the Ottoman conquerors of Trebizond.*

_As noted above, the painted front may have belonged to another chest so that the attempts to link it with the Strozzi remain speculative. Moreover, it has not been proven that the chest itself came from the Strozzi palace, though it contains Strozzi emblems. Several Strozzi marriages have been suggested as appropriate moments for the commission: Caterina Strozzi, who married Jacopo degli Spini in 1462 [see Ref. Nickel 1974]; the brother of Vanni di Francesco Strozzi, who traveled to Constantinople and Trebizond in 1462 and who commissioned a cassone from Apollonio for the marriage [see Ref. Paribeni 2001]; Strozza di Messer Marcello degli Strozzi, who married in 1459; Benedetto di Marco degli Strozzi, who married in 1462 [Baskins, reported in Ref. Krohn 2008]; and finally, most prominent of all, the wealthy banker Filippo Strozzi—the builder of Palazzo Strozzi—who married Fiammetta degli Adimari in 1466 [Beatrice Paolozzi-Strozzi, in Ref. Krohn 2008]._


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## Gladius (Aug 19, 2022)

dreamtime said:


> ​In October 1982, a few months after the Israeli invasion of Lebanon, ARAMCO World Magazine published a collection of articles called "Paradise Lost: A Eulogy for Lebanon," about the ante-bellum time in the Lebanon between 1945-1982, which was once part of the Ottoman Empire. Apparently it was a time of innocence, abundance and prosperity.



It is great that you bring up Lebanon, as it is really a gem of the region which lost its glory, but there are some corrections to be made to your post here. I don't think you errored intentionally, you just skipped important historical facts, which is odd, because in your following post about Lebanon you do acknowledge the creation of Islam to oppose the other religions.

The article you brought up gives you the notion that the Israeli invasion of 1982 destroyed Lebanon. It is not true.
To start off, I don't know why you'd use an article from "AramcoWorld", it literally was the western propaganda arm of the royal Saudi family, who helped finance the extremist Sunnis in Lebanon, who were the ones massacring the Christians.

I will provide a thorough explanation of how Lebanon lost itself, and even this long reply won't be enough. Basically, yes, Israel did some damage there, but thinking that Lebanon is defined by "pre 82" and "after 82" is being virtually unaware of the country's history.



dreamtime said:


> After the French occupation following World War II, Lebanon flourished between 1950 and 1980, experiencing a kind of cultural, economic and material renaissance. Probably in connection with the golden age of the Ottoman Empire, this period is called the golden age of Lebanon.



The French entered Lebanon in 1917, after WW1. The flourishing period you speak of, happened between 1930 and 1965, and things deteriorated since.
Lebanon had a Christian majority up until the 60's. As the country developed and modernized, the Christians had less children, and the Muslims had more.
In the Arab world, we're talking about huge gaps of 8 children vs. 3 children per family for example. As Lebanon developed, more jobs were available, and Muslims migrated there from every Arab country, shifting the balance.

The primal problem of Lebanon was its diversity, which became very tribalized. The French left the country to its independence in the 40's, and installed a very strange "*democratic" system*, in which each one of the many groups (Christians, Sunni, Shia and Druze and more) had a "fixed" position such as Presisent, head of Parliament and etc., and it is so until this day. The fixing of political roles was based on a population census made in the 30's, and not one census was made ever since. Basically, voting means nothing, because every group has a reserved spot in government and parliament.

When the French left, many Christians *left Lebanon* as well.
The "mini civil wars" started already in the 1950's, as Muslims claimed the Christians got the better share of the political power, unfairly.

The *Lebanese civil war *officially started in 1975, but killing and massacres were common for decades.
In this small country, of just a few millions in population, the people already had dozens of polarized militant groups, among them: Communists, Fascists, pro-Syria annexation, pro-Egypt annexation (pan-Arabism), pro-Iraq, and one very critical group: *Palestinians*, who in fact triggered the civil war into full scale.

In the early 1970's, the neighboring Jordan went to war against the Palestinian militants in what is known as Black September, after the militants tried to overthrow the Hashemite royals, and killed thousands of Jordanians.
Upon defeat, Jordan expelled the Palestinians to southern Lebanon, which became the "wild west" of the country. The (Sunni) Palestinian PLO organization under Yasser Arafat began to de-facto *occupy the region,* robbing and terrorizing the Shia villagers who lived under their rule. They developed a strong militia which began to:
1. Raid and massacre Christian villages 2. Fire rockets at Israel day by day, and send assassins to its towns.

In *1976*, the *Syrian Army* entered Lebanon and began to interfere in the battles. Its final goal was to annex Lebanon into Syria, but they sank in "the Lebanese mud". Months after, a Pan-Arabian force of 30,000 soldiers from Saudi Arabia, Libya and Sudan entered Lebanon to try and keep the peace, but had failed.

Prior to the Israeli invasion, Israel provided support for the Christian militias along its border, so that they can repel the Palestinians out, but they were being overcome.

Israel entered Lebanon in 1982, after a decade of assaults from across the border. It was also feared that the Christians will be annihilated, and Syria will annex the country.
Israel focused on southern Lebanon and defeated the Palestinian militia. The Christians allied with Israel, and a Lebanese unit was even formed in the Israeli army.

The next move by Israel is disputed until today as to whether it was a mistake or essential: Israel used the momentum and captured Beirut, and expelled the Syrian army. Israel did not proceed past Beirut. Israel then tried to restore Lebanon to Christian domination by installing a Christian Presisent who was popular back then. Once Israel left Beirut, the new president was assassinated. The civil war raged on, and Israel retreated to the south. There, Syria financed a new Shia group, Hezbollah, to fight Israel in the south border.

The civil war continued until 1990, when the Syrian army captured a part of Beirut.
Between 1940 and 1990, the majority of Christians left Lebanon. Today, there's a bigger population of Christian Lebanese diaspora, than the entire Lebanon itself. Most of them live in South America.



dreamtime said:


> When a culture's connection with its roots is cut, as in this case by the Israeli invasion, there is a sudden rupture and the realization that something essential has been irrevocably lost.
> 
> The sentimental memory of the Lebanese of the pre-1982 era probably reflects much more than is apparent at first glance: in the last 200 years, most cultures or nations have lost their own roots as a result of one or more orchestrated crises, and have been in a state of inner emptiness ever since. Only by reconnecting with the past can something emerge that forms a foundation for human civilization.



As you probably now understand, there is no "pre-1982" era in Lebanon.
The weakening of the country was gradual, through many bloody decades, and was mainly caused by:
1. Majority of Christians leaving: the Christians were, and still are, the basis of the economical backbone: traders, artisans, artists, businessmen. Up until the 90's, almost every Muslim was a farmer.
2. The flooding of the country with firearms, by all countries who interfered with it: Syria, Iraq, Israel, France, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan.
3. An unfair, blatantly fake democratic system which the French created only to try and bury a sleeping dragon of polarized diversity.
4. Decades of murders and town on town  raids, with over 150,000 dead (out of a few millions total). Annexation attempt by Syria.
5. High corruption by the Muslim politicans, who grabbed political power in the late 80's, and began to rob the country, leading a lavish lifestyle contrary to Islamic values (drinking, partying etc.).

In 2000, Israel evacuated the last military outposts it kept on the Lebanese side of the border. The remaining Christians who lived in the south, were under death threats from the Hezbollah, and fled to Israel, where they received citizenship.

There is no 1 artificial crisis that created a before and after. You're talking here about one of the most complicated countries in the world!
And the people with the memories, they now live abroad, mostly in Brazil and France, jealously keeping their original Lebanese identity.


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## dreamtime (Aug 20, 2022)

Gladius said:


> To start off, I don't know why you'd use an article from "AramcoWorld", it literally was the western propaganda arm of the royal Saudi family, who helped finance the extremist Sunnis in Lebanon, who were the ones massacring the Christians.



thanks for informing me about the background of that magazine, that is indeed very questionable. That people generally remember a golden age of the 60s seems to be the case, though.


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## Gladius (Aug 20, 2022)

dreamtime said:


> thanks for informing me about the background of that magazine, that is indeed very questionable. That people generally remember a golden age of the 60s seems to be the case, though.



Lebanon knew several golden times, which were separated by times of great bloodshed. The country has a very rich and complex history for its small size.

A part of it which is often forgotten, is the influence of the Druze people. The Druze is a ethno-religious group which imo deserves its own SH research post. Their primary presence originated in Lebanon, and they used to be the majority there until the mid 1800s.
The Christian Arabs began to migrate there in the 19th century by encouragement of both the Ottomans, and Austria, which tried to establish itself in Lebanon prior to France.
Between the late 18th century and early 20th century, there were many wars between Christian and Druze. The Druze were often richer and with stronger military culture. At first, most Christians were peasants and vassals to Druze landlords, but after many wars, there was a mixed situation in which Druze lords owned Christian lands and vice versa. The Ottomans were so desperate to solve the tensions in Lebanon that they invited the Austrians to negotiate new terms, which even caused the feudal system to change and make Lebanon a tax free region in the Empire.

An interesting solution the Ottomans used, they appointed an Ottoman Catholic chancellor to supervise every province in Lebanon, and he was in charge of solving disputes. Both the Druze, Christians and the Muslim minority supported it. The Christian Lebanese are of the Maronic faith, closer to Orthodox than to Catholic.

Even that didn't last long, and in one of the civil wars the Christians defeated the Druze and caused most of them to flee and resettle in Syria, in a province now called "The Druze Mountain".
The Druze became a minority in Lebanon, and when the French stepped in, their political power was reduced even further.

So "golden ages" in Lebanon are very subjective to which decade and province you talk about. It's a land with rich soil and good geography, involving both high snowy mountains, hills, valleys, rivers, beaches and grasslands. When peace is kept and the politics are stable, it is a paradise for the classic Arab farmer, the climate grants with high quality products that could be exported to far away lands for decent returns. The mountain of Baal Bek, known for the great monoliths, is one of the most fertile province which once fed the whole country. In the last decades the Hezbollah militants use it to grow poppy and cannabis which is exported worldwide ("Lebanese hashish") and is their main source of income.


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## PantaOz (Aug 23, 2022)

Like in any other society... you follow the rules, you are safe... for those who wanted real freedom... well, as the "komiti" experienced in Macedonia during their Ilinden Uprising (Macedonian National Day is celebrated on 2 August, the day this uprising started), Ottoman rullers had only one answer... and they didn't care if you were Muslim or Christian!

This was recorded by the brothers Manaki in 1905... real footage that tells the truth!





Your browser is not able to display this video.


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## NPC#0 (Aug 27, 2022)

Reading the OP, I think it is biased, so let me provide the exactly opposite bias. Slavery and brutality was a thing in that "diverse paradise" society. Janissaries - exclusive to the Ottoman Empire - pretty much destroy the argument that the populations loved the Ottoman Empire. I will quote Wikipedia which is often wrong, but not in this case:



> From the 1380s to 1648, the Janissaries were gathered through the _devşirme_ system, which was abolished in 1648.[12] This was the taking (enslaving) of non-Muslim boys,[13] notably Anatolian and Balkan Christians; Jews were never subject to _devşirme_, nor were children from Turkic families. According to the _Encyclopedia Britannica_, "in early days, all Christians were enrolled indiscriminately. Later, those from what is now Albania, Bosnia, and Bulgaria were preferred."[14]


tl;dr: Soldiers came up your door, stole your children and you never saw your children again. They were circumcized, trained brutally, and sent to fight to the death. And you even paid taxes as an ottoman citizen, doesn't matter.



> Children were kidnapped at a young age and turned into soldiers in an attempt to make the soldiers faithful to the sultan.


And if they survived enough battles to reach adulthood, they were brainwashed/conditioned by their enviroment to fanatically support the same system which enslaved them.


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## PantaOz (Aug 27, 2022)

NPC#0 said:


> Reading the OP, I think it is biased, so let me provide the exactly opposite bias. Slavery and brutality was a thing in that "diverse paradise" society. Janissaries - exclusive to the Ottoman Empire - pretty much destroy the argument that the populations loved the Ottoman Empire. I will quote Wikipedia which is often wrong, but not in this case:
> 
> 
> tl;dr: Soldiers came up your door, stole your children and you never saw your children again. They were circumcized, trained brutally, and sent to fight to the death. And you even paid taxes as an ottoman citizen, doesn't matter.
> ...


They were taking one boy over family,  not all the children... just to clarify... not right, but these were the rules.


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## BusyBaci (Aug 28, 2022)

NPC#0 said:


> Reading the OP, I think it is biased, so let me provide the exactly opposite bias. Slavery and brutality was a thing in that "diverse paradise" society. Janissaries - exclusive to the Ottoman Empire - pretty much destroy the argument that the populations loved the Ottoman Empire. I will quote Wikipedia which is often wrong, but not in this case:
> 
> 
> tl;dr: Soldiers came up your door, stole your children and you never saw your children again. They were circumcized, trained brutally, and sent to fight to the death. And you even paid taxes as an ottoman citizen, doesn't matter.
> ...


That's very true of what you said, that's exactly what I posted on some prior post on this thread. No one really knows the sacrifice of what Balkan people had to endure under the Ottoman empire. The thread's author and some other German posters think it's a joke. They think the Ottomans were good and benevolent like the Jedis. pfff
All of this just because someone doesn't know history and wants to sell a post about something they don't know anything about. Pathetic. Running a website is not the same thing as running history!

If it wasn't for the 25 years alliance in between Gjergj Kastrioti in Albania and Janosh Hunyadi in Hungary in 1444 against the Ottomans, I'm sure the whole of Italy would be speaking Arabic as of right now and they'll be screaming: Allahu Akbar!

The Ottomans had a clear goal, they wanted the Balkans so they could jump at Vatican and take revenge for the sack and destruction of Constantinople and Jerusalem. They wanted revenge. Which was stopped for 50+ years in Albania. Sulltan Mehmet I died trying to take Albania but he went to hell without succeeding. Sulltan Mehmet the II was able to conquer it, but by that time ottoman forces were too weak to take on Vatican city, thus they abandoned their plans.

This is stolen history that no one talks about, not some stupid thing about the ottomans being good old guys and Germans being the good guys after them!! If it wasn't for the Ballkan's resistance to muslims, half of Europe would be in burkas, sandals and in mosques right now!


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## Gladius (Aug 28, 2022)

BusyBaci said:


> That's very true of what you said, that's exactly what I posted on some prior post on this thread. No one really knows the sacrifice of what Balkan people had to endure under the Ottoman empire. The thread's author and some other German posters think it's a joke. They think the Ottomans were good and benevolent like the Jedis. pfff
> All of this just because someone doesn't know history and wants to sell a post about something they don't know anything about. Pathetic. Running a website is not the same thing as running history!



As you maybe saw already, I have also been critical of the OP, but to be fair the author is trying to point out a certain early period in the Ottoman era which was more let's say, fantastical for its citizens. I'm not convinced of it but open to it, and possibly it's not even what we call "Ottoman" since historical timelines and identities have been tampered with.

Another thing, I think that in the "Old world" it could've been such a scenario in any Imperial realm, that living as a citizen in the "inner lands" would be prosperous and with freedom, but living as a conquered enemy would be the total opposite, a strong polarity in policies. In the example of Ottomans it is the Balkan people who suffered the wrath, despite being a part of the Empire (some of them).

There are those who also praise the old Russian Empire for making such a fantastical world for its unified peoples with free energy and all that. Might be true? Yes, but at the same time if you lived in the Cossack lands, life was probably far from fun and games.

So the point isn't to defend the post, just to point out, I think it was possible for an entity, an Empire, to be capable of great evil and great good at the same time.


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## Nick Weech (Sep 11, 2022)

dreamtime said:


> I remember Sylvie talked about something similar in one of her videos. The idea was that back then Islam and Christianity were still somewhat unified, and no stictly separated religions.


That reminds me of Ignacio Olague and his investigation into "Islamic Spain" pre 1492:
https://mergueze.info/the-arabs-hav...-never-invaded-spain-ignacio-olagues-revenge/


Gladius said:


> As you maybe saw already, I have also been critical of the OP, but to be fair the author is trying to point out a certain early period in the Ottoman era which was more let's say, fantastical for its citizens. I'm not convinced of it but open to it, and possibly it's not even what we call "Ottoman" since historical timelines and identities have been tampered with.
> 
> Another thing, I think that in the "Old world" it could've been such a scenario in any Imperial realm, that living as a citizen in the "inner lands" would be prosperous and with freedom, but living as a conquered enemy would be the total opposite, a strong polarity in policies. In the example of Ottomans it is the Balkan people who suffered the wrath, despite being a part of the Empire (some of them).
> 
> ...


Short history of Bogomils in Bosnia
The heretical Bogomils and the Balkans.

I came across an old text: by L P Brockett
[Projekat Rastko] L. P.  Brockett - The Bogomils of Bulgaria and Bosnia: The Early Protestants of the East. (1879)

So much of the history has been hidden away or simply destroyed. What really was going on back then, Popes, Crusades, Schism ...


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## Jd755 (Dec 27, 2022)

Pick your tower and place it in your time!

Translation from twitter.

"The timeline I prepared about the historical change of the Galata Tower from the beginning of the 6th century to the present."






_View: https://mobile.twitter.com/studioodo/status/1604431993063751681_


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## Nick Weech (Dec 31, 2022)

Jd755 said:


> Pick your tower and place it in your time!
> 
> Translation from twitter.
> 
> ...



Did you get any response? I find Twitter generated little unless you had a blue tick #ClosedShop


Nick Weech said:


> That reminds me of Ignacio Olague and his investigation into "Islamic Spain" pre 1492:
> https://mergueze.info/the-arabs-hav...-never-invaded-spain-ignacio-olagues-revenge/
> 
> Short history of Bogomils in Bosnia
> ...





Nick Weech said:


> Did you get any response? I find Twitter generated little unless you had a blue tick #ClosedShop


So my post achieved null response.

Says much- even on this platform...


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## Jd755 (Dec 31, 2022)

Nick Weech said:


> Did you get any response?


Response from who about what?


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## Nick Weech (Dec 31, 2022)

Jd755 said:


> Response from who about what?


From anyone re:my original posting. 

It got merged into your thread by an admin bot. I wasn't refer to this thread directly but to my thread from a month ago. Sorry about any inadvertant confusion but often noticed, some discussions don't get picked up, others go 'viral' ...


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