The mighty Ottoman Empire, which existed for many centuries, disappeared with political maps world only in the 20th century. It once controlled vast territories of Asia, Europe and the East, seizing new lands and gaining a foothold on them. However, world history made its own adjustments, and now only numerous cultural and historical monuments, which in modern Turkey a great number have been preserved.
Facts about the Ottoman Empire
- It existed for more than 600 centuries - a huge period, considering that many large states, collected from various lands, like patchwork quilt, usually fell apart much faster.
- At its peak, at the turn of the 16th and 17th centuries, the area of the Ottoman Empire was only slightly short of 20 million square kilometers. This is approximately 2.5 million sq. km. larger than the area of modern Russia.
- Northern borders Ottoman Empire extended to the territories now occupied by Austria, Poland and Lithuania ().
- In its open spaces they spoke different languages, since the rulers conquered many different nations. The main thing was considered Ottoman language, partly close to modern Turkish.
- For 8 years, the Ottoman Empire was officially called the Ottoman Caliphate.
- If it still existed, Russia would have a common border with it.
- Fearing competition from blood relatives, in the Ottoman Empire, rulers usually executed all siblings who could lay claim to the throne. The law was applied for about two hundred years, but was later softened, and death was replaced by life imprisonment.
- First World War led to the final collapse of the Ottoman Empire, of which Türkiye became the legal successor. Its former possessions are now independent states - Algeria, Serbia, Montenegro, Albania, Egypt and many other countries ().
- It was from this country that the tulips for which the Netherlands are now so famous came to Europe.
- The crescent moon, now a symbol of Islam in Muslim countries, became it precisely in the Ottoman Empire.
- For citizens of the empire who were not Muslims, additional taxes were created that they had to pay.
- Everyone has Ottoman sultans there were extensive harems. Some of them had up to 2,000 women.
- The Ottoman Sultan Selim the Terrible entered history, under whom many great viziers changed. This position was very honorable, the Grand Vizier - right hand Sultan. However, Selim the Terrible executed viziers even for minor offenses, so no one wanted to occupy this position voluntarily under him. And those who had to, carried a will with them. Yes, just in case.
- The role of the capital of the Ottoman Empire in different eras carried out different cities. For the longest time, more than 450 years, it was Istanbul ().
- A person sentenced to death had the right to demand trial instead of execution. If he managed to get to the city gates ahead of the executioner pursuing him, he was released.
- The personal power of rulers in the Ottoman Empire was seriously limited from the end of the 19th century.
- Throughout its entire long history Russia fought with the Ottoman Empire as many as 12 times.
- In this state, Christians and Jews did not have the right to ride horses or bear arms. This was allowed only to Muslims.
- Poetry was extremely popular in the Ottoman Empire, but the first novels and stories appeared only at the beginning of the 19th century.
- Istanbul has become Ottoman capital after the Ottoman Turks stormed Constantinople, ancient capital Byzantium. They did not plunder the city, but settled in it, renamed it and even moved the Sultan’s residence here.
For almost 400 years, the Ottoman Empire controlled most of the territories of Southeast Europe, Turkey and the Middle East. It was founded by brave Turkic riders, but the empire soon lost most its original power and vitality, while in a state of functional dysfunction that held many secrets.
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10Fratricide
IN early periods The Ottoman sultans did not practice the principle of primogeniture, when the eldest son is the only heir. Therefore, all existing brothers claimed the throne at once, and the losers then went over to the side of enemy states and for a long time caused many problems to the victorious Sultan.
When Mehmed the Conqueror tried to conquer Constantinople, his uncle fought against him from the walls of the city. Mehmed solved the problem with his characteristic ruthlessness. After ascending the throne, he simply ordered the killing of male relatives, including not sparing his infant brother. Later, he issued a law that deprived more than one generation of life: “And the one of my sons who leads the Sultanate must kill his brothers. Most ulema allow themselves to do this anyway. So let them continue to act like this.”
From that moment on, each new sultan took the throne by killing all his male relatives. Mehmed III tore out his beard out of grief when he younger brother asked not to kill him. But he "did not answer a single word," and the boy was executed along with 18 other brothers. The sight of their 19 wrapped bodies being driven through the streets was said to have made the whole of Istanbul cry.
Even after the first round of murders, the rest of the Sultan's relatives were also dangerous. Suleiman the Magnificent watched silently from behind the screen as his own son was strangled with a bowstring; the boy became too popular in the army, so that the Sultan could not feel safe.
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9
In the photo: Kafes, Kuruçeşme, İstanbul The principle of fratricide was never popular among the people and the clergy, so it was quietly abolished after sudden death Sultan Ahmed in 1617. Instead, potential heirs to the throne were kept at Topkapi Palace in Istanbul in special rooms known as "Kafes" ("cages").
One could spend one's entire life imprisoned in Kafes under the constant supervision of guards. Imprisonment was generally luxurious in terms of conditions, but with very strict restrictions. Many princes went crazy from boredom, or went into debauchery and drunkenness. When the new sultan was brought to the Gate of the Sovereign so that the viziers could pledge their loyalty to him, it may have been the first time he had gone outside in several decades, which did not bode well for the abilities of the new ruler.
In addition, the threat of liquidation from the ruling relative was constant. In 1621, the Grand Mufti refused Osman II's request to strangle his brother. Then he turned to the chief judge, who made the opposite decision, and the prince was strangled. Osman himself was later overthrown by the military, who were to remove his surviving brother from Kafes by dismantling the roof and pulling him out on a rope. The poor man spent two days without food or water, and was probably too distraught to notice that he had become Sultan.
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8Silent Hell in the Palace
Even for the Sultan, life in Topkapi could be extremely boring and unbearable. It was then considered that it was indecent for the Sultan to talk too much, so it was introduced special language gestures, and the ruler spent most of his time in complete silence. Sultan Mustafa found this completely unbearable and tried to lift such a ban, but his viziers refused. Mustafa soon went crazy and threw coins from the shore to the fish so that they would spend them.
Intrigues in the palace were constantly woven in large quantities, since viziers, courtiers, and eunuchs fought for power. For 130 years, the women of the harem had great influence, a period that became known as the "female sultanate." Dragoman (chief translator) was always an influential person, and always a Greek. The eunuchs were divided according to racial, the Chief Black Eunuch and the Chief White Eunuch were often bitter rivals.
At the center of this madness, the Sultan was under surveillance wherever he went. Ahmet III wrote to the Grand Vizier: “If I go from one room to another, 40 people line up, when I need to put on my pants, I do not feel the slightest comfort in this environment, so the squire must dismiss everyone, leaving only three or four people to I could be calm." Spending your days in complete silence under constant monitoring and in such a poisonous atmosphere, several Ottoman sultans last period lost their minds.
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7
The authorities in the Ottoman Empire had complete control over both the life and death of their subjects. Moreover, death was quite commonplace. The first courtyard of the Topkapi Palace, where petitioners and guests gathered, was a terrible place. There were two columns on which severed heads hung and a special fountain in which only executioners could wash their hands. During periodic total “cleansings” in the palace, entire mounds of cut-out tongues of the guilty were piled up in this courtyard, and a special cannon fired every time another body was thrown into the sea.
It is interesting that the Turks did not specifically create a corps of executioners. This work was performed by the palace gardeners, who divided their time between executions and growing delicious flowers. They beheaded most of their victims. But shedding the blood of members royal family and high-ranking officials were prohibited, they were awaited by strangulation. As a result, the head gardener was always a huge, muscular man who was capable of strangling any vizier at a moment's notice.
In the early periods, the viziers were proud of their obedience, and any decision of the Sultan was accepted without complaint. The famous vizier Kara Mustafa very respectfully greeted his executioner with the humble words “Let it be so,” while kneeling with a noose around his neck.
In subsequent years, attitudes towards this type of business management changed. In the 19th century, Governor Ali Pasha fought so hard against the Sultan's men that he had to be shot through the floorboards of his house.
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6
There was one way for the faithful vizier to avoid the wrath of the Sultan and stay alive. Beginning with late XVIII century, a custom arose that a convicted grand vizier could avoid execution by defeating the head gardener in a race through the palace gardens.
The condemned man was brought to a meeting with the head gardener, and after an exchange of greetings, the vizier was presented with a cup of frozen sherbet. If the sherbet was white, it meant that the Sultan had granted a reprieve. If it is red, then an execution must take place. As soon as the vizier saw the red sherbet, he had to immediately run away.
The viziers ran through the palace gardens between shady cypress trees and rows of tulips, while hundreds of eyes watched them from behind the windows of the harem. The convict's goal was to reach the fish market gate on the other side of the palace. If the vizier reached the gate before the head gardener, he was simply exiled. But the gardener was always younger and stronger, and, as a rule, was already waiting for his victim at the gate with a silk cord.
However, several viziers managed to avoid execution in this way, including Hachi Salih Pasha, the last to participate in this death race. After running with the gardener, he became the governor of one of the provinces.
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5Mauling of Viziers
In theory, the Grand Vizier was second in command to the Sultan, but it was he who was executed or thrown into the crowd whenever things went wrong. Under Sultan Selim the Terrible there were so many great viziers that they always began to carry their wills with them. One day one of them asked Selim to let him know in advance if they were going to execute him, to which the Sultan cheerfully replied that there was already a queue lined up to replace him.
The viziers also had to reassure the people of Istanbul, who had the habit of coming to the palace and demanding execution in case of any failures. It must be said that people were not afraid to storm the palace if their demands were not met. In 1730, a rag-clad soldier named Patrona Ali led a crowd into the palace and they were able to take control of the empire for several months. He was stabbed to death after trying to get a butcher to lend him money for the ruler of Wallachia.
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4
Perhaps the most terrible place in the Topkapi Palace was the imperial harem. It numbered up to 2,000 women - the wives and concubines of the Sultan, most of them were bought or kidnapped as slaves. They were kept locked up in the harem, and for a stranger, one look at them meant immediate death. The harem itself was guarded and controlled by the Chief Black Eunuch, whose position was one of the most powerful in the empire.
Very little information has reached us about the living conditions in the harem and about the events taking place within its walls. It was believed that there were so many concubines that the Sultan had never even seen some of them. And others were so influential that they participated in the administration of the empire. Suleiman the Magnificent fell madly in love with a concubine from Ukraine, whose name was Roksolana, married her, and made her his main adviser.
Roxolana's influence was so great that the Grand Vizier ordered the kidnapping of the Italian beauty Julia Gonzaga in the hope that she could capture the attention of the Sultan. The plan was foiled by a brave Italian who broke into Julia's bedroom and carried her away on horseback just before the kidnappers arrived.
Kösem Sultan had even more influence than Roksolana, effectively ruling the empire as regent for her son and grandson. But Turhan’s daughter-in-law did not give up her position without a fight, and Kösem Sultan was strangled with a curtain by Turhan’s supporters.
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3Tax in blood
In the early Ottoman period there was a devshirme (“blood tax”) - a type of tax in which boys from Christian subjects of the empire were taken into the service of the empire. Most of the boys became janissaries and slave soldiers who were always on the front line in all Ottoman conquests. The tax was collected irregularly only when the empire's available number of soldiers fell short. As a rule, boys aged 12-14 were taken from Greece and the Balkans.
Ottoman officials collected all the boys in the village and checked names against baptismal records from the local church. Then the strongest were selected, at the rate of one boy for every 40 households. Selected children were sent on foot to Istanbul, the weakest were left to die on the roadsides. A detailed description of each child was prepared so that they could be tracked if they escaped.
In Istanbul, they were circumcised and forcibly converted to Islam. The most beautiful or intelligent were sent to the palace, where they were trained so that they could join the elite part of the Sultan's subjects. These guys could eventually achieve very high ranks, and many of them became pashas or viziers, like the famous Grand Vizier from Croatia Sokollu Mehmed.
The rest of the boys joined the Janissaries. They were first sent to work on farms for eight years, where they learned Turkish and grew up. At the age of 20, they officially became Janissaries - the elite soldiers of the empire with iron discipline and ideology.
There were exceptions to this tax. It was forbidden to take away from the family the only child or children from men who served in the army. For some reason, orphans and Hungarians were not accepted. Residents of Istanbul were also excluded on the grounds that they "have no sense of shame." The system of such tribute ceased to exist in early XVIII centuries when the children of the Janissaries were allowed to become Janissaries
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2
Slavery remained main feature Ottoman Empire until the end of the 19th century. Most slaves came from Africa or the Caucasus (the Adygs were especially valued), and Crimean Tatars provided constant flow Russians, Ukrainians and even Poles. It was believed that Muslims could not legally be enslaved, but this rule was quietly forgotten when the recruitment of non-Muslims ceased.
Renowned scholar Bernard Lewis argued that Islamic slavery emerged independently of Western slavery and, therefore, had a number of significant differences. For example, it was easier for Ottoman slaves to gain freedom or occupy high positions. But there is no doubt that Ottoman slavery was incredibly cruel. Millions of people died from raids or from
exhausting work in the fields. This is not even mentioning the castration process used to obtain eunuchs. As Lewis pointed out, the Ottomans brought millions of slaves from Africa, but there are now very few people of African descent in modern Turkey. This speaks for itself.
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1
In general, the Ottoman Empire was quite tolerant. Apart from the devshirme, they made no real attempt to convert their non-Muslim subjects to Islam and welcomed the Jews when they were expelled from Spain. Subjects were never discriminated against, and the empire was practically run by Albanians and Greeks. But when the Turks themselves felt threatened, they could act very cruelly.
Selim the Terrible, for example, was very concerned that the Shiites, who rejected his authority as a defender of Islam, could be double agents Persia. As a result, he swept through the east of his empire, destroying livestock and killing at least 40,000 Shiites.
As the empire weakened, it lost its former tolerance, and minorities had a hard time. TO 19th century massacres have become more and more common. In the terrible year of 1915, just two years before the collapse of the empire, a massacre of 75 percent of Armenian population. About 1.5 million people died then, but Turkey still refuses to fully recognize these atrocities as the Armenian genocide.
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Conclusion
This was an article Secrets of the Ottoman Empire. TOP 10 interesting facts. Thank you for your attention!
For almost 400 years, the Ottoman Empire ruled the territory of modern Turkey, southeastern Europe and the Middle East. Today, interest in the history of this empire is greater than ever, but few know that the stop had many “dark” secrets that were hidden from prying eyes.
1. Fratricide
Early Ottoman sultans did not practice primogeniture, in which the eldest son inherits everything. As a result, there were often a number of brothers laying claim to the throne. In the first decades, it was not uncommon for some of the potential heirs to take refuge in enemy states and cause a lot of problems for many years.
When Mehmed the Conqueror was besieging Constantinople, his uncle fought against him from the walls of the city. Mehmed dealt with the problem with his usual ruthlessness. When he ascended the throne, he executed most of his male relatives, including even ordering his infant brother to be strangled in his cradle. He later issued his infamous law, which stated: " One of my sons who should inherit the Sultanate must kill his brothers"From that moment on, each new sultan had to take the throne by killing all his male relatives.
Mehmed III tore out his beard in grief when his younger brother begged him for mercy. But at the same time he “did not answer him a word,” and the boy was executed along with 18 other brothers. And Suleiman the Magnificent silently watched from behind a screen as his own son was strangled with a bowstring when he became too popular in the army and began to pose a danger to his power.
2. Cages for sekhzade
The policy of fratricide was never popular with the people and clergy, and when Ahmed I died suddenly in 1617, it was abandoned. Instead of killing all potential heirs to the throne, they began to be imprisoned in the Topkapi Palace in Istanbul in special rooms known as Kafes (“cages”). An Ottoman prince could spend his entire life imprisoned in Kafes, under constant guards. And although the heirs were, as a rule, kept in luxury, many shehzade (sons of the sultans) went crazy from boredom or became debauched drunkards. And this is understandable, because they understood that they could be executed at any moment.
3. The palace is like a quiet hell
Even for the Sultan, life in Topkapi Palace could be extremely gloomy. At that time there was an opinion that it was indecent for the Sultan to talk too much, so it was introduced special form sign language, and the ruler spent most of his time in complete silence.
Mustafa I considered that this was simply impossible to bear and tried to abolish such a rule, but his viziers refused to approve this ban. As a result, Mustafa soon went crazy. He often came to the seashore and threw coins into the water so that “at least the fish would spend them somewhere.”
The atmosphere in the palace was literally saturated with intrigue - everyone was fighting for power: viziers, courtiers and eunuchs. The women of the harem gained great influence and this period of the empire eventually became known as the "Sultanate of Women." Ahmet III once wrote to his grand vizier: " If I move from one room to another, then 40 people line up in the corridor, when I get dressed, then security is watching me... I can never be alone".
4. Gardener with executioner duties
The Ottoman rulers had complete power over the life and death of their subjects, and they used it without hesitation. Topkapi Palace, where petitioners and guests were received, was a terrifying place. It had two columns on which severed heads were placed, as well as a special fountain exclusively for the executioners so that they could wash their hands. During periodic cleansing of the palace from unwanted or guilty people, entire mounds of the tongues of victims were built in the courtyard.
Interestingly, the Ottomans did not bother to create a corps of executioners. These duties, oddly enough, were entrusted to the palace gardeners, who divided their time between killing and growing delicious flowers. Most victims were simply beheaded. But it was forbidden to shed the blood of the Sultan's family and high-ranking officials, so they were strangled. It was for this reason that the head gardener had always been a huge, muscular man, capable of quickly strangling anyone.
5. Death Race
For guilty officials there was the only way avoid the Sultan's wrath. Beginning in the late 18th century, a custom arose where a convicted grand vizier could escape his fate by defeating the head gardener in a race through the palace gardens. The vizier was called to a meeting with the head gardener and, after an exchange of greetings, he was presented with a cup of frozen sherbet. If the sherbet was white, then the Sultan granted the vizier a reprieve, and if it was red, he had to execute the vizier. As soon as the condemned man saw the red sherbet, he immediately had to run through the palace gardens between the shady cypress trees and rows of tulips. The goal was to reach the gate on the other side of the garden that led to the fish market.
The problem was one thing: the vizier was being pursued by the head gardener (who was always younger and stronger) with a silk cord. However, several viziers managed to do so, including Haci Salih Pasha, the last vizier who was the last to participate in such a deadly race. As a result, he became the sanjak bey (governor) of one of the provinces.
6. Scapegoats
Although grand viziers were theoretically second only to the sultan in power, they were typically executed or thrown into the crowd as a scapegoat whenever something went wrong. During the time of Selim the Terrible, so many great viziers changed that they began to always carry their wills with them. One vizier once asked Selim to let him know in advance if he was executed soon, to which the Sultan replied that a whole line of people had already lined up to replace him. The viziers also had to calm the people of Istanbul, who always, when they didn’t like something, came in a crowd to the palace and demanded execution.
7. Harem
Perhaps the most important attraction of the Topkapi Palace was the Sultan's harem. It consisted of up to 2,000 women, most of whom were purchased or kidnapped slaves. These wives and concubines of the Sultan were kept locked up, and any stranger who saw them was executed on the spot.
The harem itself was guarded and controlled by the chief eunuch, who because of had enormous power. Today there is little information about living conditions in a harem. It is known that there were so many concubines that some of them almost never caught the eye of the Sultan. Others managed to gain such enormous influence over him that they took part in resolving political issues.
So, Suleiman the Magnificent fell madly in love with the Ukrainian beauty Roksolana (1505-1558), married her and made her his main adviser. Roxolana's influence on imperial politics was such that the Grand Vizier sent the pirate Barbarossa on a desperate mission to kidnap the Italian beauty Giulia Gonzaga (Countess of Fondi and Duchess of Traetto) in the hope that Suleiman would take notice of her when she was brought into the harem. The plan ultimately failed, and Julia was never kidnapped.
Another lady - Kesem Sultan (1590-1651) - achieved even greater influence than Roksolana. She ruled the empire as regent in place of her son and later grandson.
8. Blood tribute
One of the most famous features of early Ottoman rule was devşirme ("blood tribute"), a tax levied on the non-Muslim population of the empire. This tax consisted of the forced recruitment of young boys from Christian families. Most boys were recruited into the Janissary Corps, an army of slave soldiers who were always used in the first line of Ottoman conquests. This tribute was collected irregularly, usually resorting to devshirma when the sultan and viziers decided that the empire might need additional work force and warriors. As a rule, boys aged 12-14 years were recruited from Greece and the Balkans, and the strongest were taken (on average, 1 boy per 40 families).
Ottoman officials gathered the recruited boys together and took them to Istanbul, where they were entered into the register (with detailed description, in case someone escaped), were circumcised and forcibly converted to Islam. The most beautiful or intelligent ones were sent to the palace, where they were trained. These guys could achieve very high ranks and many of them eventually became pashas or viziers. The remaining boys were initially sent to work on farms for eight years, where the children also studied Turkish language and developed physically.
By the age of twenty, they officially became Janissaries, the elite soldiers of the empire, renowned for their iron discipline and loyalty. The blood tribute system became obsolete in the early 18th century, when the children of the Janissaries were allowed to join the corps, which thus became self-sustaining.
9. Slavery as a tradition
Although devshirme (slavery) was gradually abandoned during the 17th century, the phenomenon continued to exist. key feature Ottoman system until the end of the 19th century. Most slaves were imported from Africa or the Caucasus (the Adyghe were especially valued), while Crimean Tatar raids provided a constant influx of Russians, Ukrainians and Poles.
It was originally forbidden to enslave Muslims, but this rule was quietly forgotten when the supply of non-Muslims began to dry up. Islamic slavery developed largely independently from Western slavery and therefore had a number of significant differences. For example, it was somewhat easier for Ottoman slaves to gain freedom or achieve some kind of influence in society. But there is no doubt that Ottoman slavery was incredibly cruel.
Millions of people died during slave raids or from backbreaking work. And that's not even mentioning the castration process that was used to fill the ranks of eunuchs. The mortality rate among slaves is illustrated by the fact that the Ottomans imported millions of slaves from Africa, while very few people of African descent remained in modern Turkey.
10. Massacres
With all of the above, we can say that the Ottomans were a fairly loyal empire. Apart from devshirme, they made no real attempts to convert non-Muslim subjects. They accepted Jews after they were expelled from Spain. They never discriminated against their subjects, and often ruled the empire ( we're talking about about officials) Albanians and Greeks. But when the Turks felt threatened, they acted very cruelly.
Selim the Terrible, for example, was very alarmed by the Shiites, who denied his authority as a defender of Islam and could be "double agents" for Persia. As a result, he massacred almost the entire east of the empire (at least 40,000 Shiites were killed and their villages were razed to the ground). When the Greeks first began to seek independence, the Ottomans resorted to the help of Albanian partisans, who carried out a series of terrible pogroms.
As the empire's influence declined, it lost much of its former tolerance for minorities. By the 19th century, massacres became much more common. This reached its climax in 1915, when the empire, just two years before its collapse, massacred 75 percent of the entire Armenian population (about 1.5 million people).
In the Ottoman Empire for a long period of time there were no civilians and internecine wars. One of the reasons for this was the executions of high-ranking officials, which were carried out with the approval of the Sultan. However, not every death sentence was carried out due to a rather strange custom that formed in the 18th century. Convict from among high nobility could challenge the chief executioner and compete with him in a race from the main gate of the Topkapi Palace to the place of public execution at the fish market. In case of victory, the execution was usually canceled and replaced by expulsion from the country. But in fact, this was not so easy to do, since officials had to compete with younger and more resilient executioners.
In the 15th century, a war broke out between claimants to the throne in the Ottoman Empire, as a result of which Mehmed I became the sultan, who united all the lands. His grandson Mehmed II, in order to avoid such destructive civil strife, introduced the practice of killing brothers who could also have designs on the throne. The bloodiest in this aspect was the reign of Mehmed III, who killed 19 siblings and half-brothers. The tradition was abolished in the 17th century by Sultan Ahmed I, replacing murder with imprisonment. Here is an excerpt from the laws of Mehmed II: “If one of my children becomes the head of the Sultanate, then to ensure public order he must kill his brothers. Most ulema approve of this. Let this rule be observed."
Despite the fact that the Grand Viziers were second only to the Sultan in power, they were usually executed or handed over to the mob whenever something went wrong. During the reign of Selim the Terrible, so many great viziers changed that they began to constantly carry wills with them.
The Sultan's harem consisted of a huge number of women. It is noteworthy that during the reign of some sultans there were up to 2,000 wives and concubines. It is worth noting that they were kept locked up, and any stranger who saw them was executed on the spot.
Devshirme is a type of tax on the non-Muslim population, a system of forced recruitment of boys from Christian families for their subsequent education and service as the Sultan’s personal slaves. The main reason for the emergence of devshirme was the mistrust of the Ottoman sultans in their own Turkic elite. Since the time of Murad I, Ottoman rulers there was a constant need to “balance the power of the (Turkic) aristocracy through the creation and development of a personal army of Christian dependent soldiers.”
Ottoman laws prescribed that members of each millet (a religious denomination with its own institutions: courts, schools, hospitals, etc.) certain rights and responsibilities. Naturally, Ottoman state sought in every possible way to emphasize the primacy of Islam and Muslims on its territory. Muslims enjoyed the greatest rights. Members of other communities had mainly responsibilities: specific color turbans; line of residence, that is, living in a certain quarter; ban on horse riding; tax in money or children. The conversion of “infidels” to Islam was encouraged in every possible way, while Muslims were punished for converting to other religions death penalty. Wherein the state budget non-Muslim millets were cut back from year to year, their marginal nature was emphasized in every possible way, and “ transition period"On the way to the complete triumph of Islamic Sharia law.
The crescent moon is one of the symbols only thanks to the Ottoman Empire. Under the Prophet Muhammad, the crescent moon was not associated with Muslims.
Cultivation in Asia began in the 11th century and reached its apogee in the Ottoman Empire from the 15th to the 18th centuries.
The artist Vebjorn Sand created in the Norwegian commune of Os pedestrian bridge designed by Leonardo da Vinci himself. Leonardo designed this bridge for the Ottoman Sultan Bayezid II and wanted it to be built in Constantinople across the Golden Horn. At that time, the project was never implemented. Five centuries later, this bridge was finally built.