Ottoman Empire Maps

The Ottoman Empire at its peak














The Decline of the Ottoman Empire

Women in Ottoman Empire

The Ottoman Empire period in the Land of Israel around the First World War, 1900-1914










Studio portrait of models wearing tradtional clothing from Salonika, Ottoman Empire. This 1873 picture depicts (L to R): A married Jewish woman of Salonika; a Bulgarian woman of Perlèpè (Prilep); a married Muslim woman of Salonika

Turkish Language

Turkish Alphabet and Basic Expressions

http://turkeyjoblink.com/turkey/advice/info_turkey.asp

Ottoman Turkish Script

"Until 1928, as part of his effort to modernice Turkey Mustafa Kemal Atartuk, issued a decree replacing the Arabic script with a version of the Latin Alphabet."

http://www.omniglot.com/writing/turkish.htm

Ottoman Empire - An Educational Primer

• Ottoman Empire begins 1299, ends with the emergence of Kemal Ataturk which brings its

remnants into a secularized democracy

• Ottomans used ideological legitimacy, derived from Islam, to maintain a longstanding

apparatus of power through tax payments and military service

• State-organized education had the primary purpose of educating personnel for this

apparatus of power

• The educational system was neither strongly centralized nor monolithic: given the number

of disparate provinces, considerable variation and divergent educational systems existed

• Generally speaking Sibyan schools (primary level) had a moral/religious focus and were

staffed by imams and Madrasahs ( secondary level) had a combination of religious and

scientific instruction

• Graduates from the Madrasahs became civil servants, imams and teachers, although another

source of state servants came from Enderun schools, which inculated non-Muslim children

in Islam

• Rural populations could not benefit from these schools and so a religious educational

network existed there: dervish lodges, religious orders and dergah (sufi brotherhood)

Ottoman Empire: Literacy

Ottoman Turkish manuscripts Koran Page: Arabic Calligraphy



According to Donald Quataert, a distinguished Ottoman scholar, the Ottoman Empire was one of the greatest, most expensive, and long lasting empires in history. It began prior to 1300 and endured until after World War I. In his book The Ottoman Empire (1700 - 1922) (2004), he dedicates an entry called reading and literacy where he indicates:

1. The Ottoman Empire was characterized as having an oral culture.
2. Few people coulld read and write in the Ottoman Empire.

3. In 1752, Aleppo had 31 Muslim medrese schools, altogether educating hundreds of students primarily reciting the Koran and learning rudimentary arithmetic.


Koran recitation




4. Only a very few women could read: a far smaller proportion than men.
5. The literate rate of Muslims was about 2 - 3 percent at the beginning of the 1800s and 15 percent at its end.

6. Literacy increased from 2 to 15 percen at the beginning of the 1800s due to:


Muslim School

- the emergence of a state sponsored educational system

- the rise of privates school among the millets (religious communuties):

Christian Schools Jewish schools
















. Ottoman Christians
. Sephardic Jews in the city of Salonica had 50 private Jewish schools (9,000 students)

Also, Quataert emphasizes that another measure of literacy is to count the number of books and newspapers beign published. He gives the following statistics of books acquired and published in the Ottoman Empire:

1. In 1752, Aleppo's largest library had only 3,00o volumes.
2. In Istanbul annually publishing figures were:

• Before 1840, eleven books
• In 1908, 285 books by 99 printing houses

3. The circulation of the two leading Istanbul newspaper were:

• 15,000 and 12,000 copies each during Sultan Abdúlhamit II's reign (1876 - 1909)
• 60,000 and 40,000 copies each after the Young Turk Revolution

Mawlawi sufi order

The Mevlevi (Mevlevilk or Mawlawi) were the well-established sufi order in Konya in the Ottoman Empire by the followers of Jalaleddin al-Rumi).  Rumi was a 13th century Persian poet, Islamic jurist, and theologian. 
                                

 "Mevlevi dervishes whirling" in Pera by Jean-Paptiste varn Mour                                      

 They are also known as the Whirling Dervishes due to their famous practice of whirling as a form of dhikr (remembrance of God). Dervish is a common term for an initiate of the Sufi path; the whirling is part of the formal Sema ceremony.

                                                                      

"Mevlevi dervishes in 1887"

Vocal and instrumental music such as kudum, ney, and daf play an important role in the Mevlevi Sema Ceremony.

During the Ottoman era, the Mevlevi order produced a number of famous poets and musicians such as Sheikh Ghalib and Ismail Ankaravi.  The Mevlevi order spread into the Balkans, Syria, Lebanon, and Egypt. 

Whirling in Istanbul, Turkey 

Links

Hi all, 

I have started to add "interesting/useful" links under the Links heading.

You can do the same if you come across a relevant link.

Mina