The legacy of the Ottoman Empire

A B M Ahsanullah | Published: March 05, 2016 00:00:00 | Updated: February 01, 2018 00:00:00

In recent times, a local TV channel ran a series titled "Sultan Sulaiman". It became popular very quickly and is being re-run.
By now, most viewers know that "Sultan Sulaiman" was an Emperor of the Ottoman Empire. But a large percentage of the viewers do not know who the Ottomans were. Hence, the author took an interest to collect information, jot down points and made an attempt to write this article, as short as possible, highlighting basic facts of the Ottomans for the reading pleasure of the esteemed readers and the TV viewers.
The story of the Ottomans began in Turkmenistan, Central Asia. Turks belong to the ancient Hun Clan of famed Hun ruler Attila. In Bengal, Turkish noblemen had established a Sultanate and ruled for 200 years till 1538 AD. The Turkish Empire was founded in 1299 by Osman-1 in Anatolia. The word Ottoman is derived from Osman. In fact, after the demise of the earlier Turkish Seljuk Sultanate, Ottomans rose to prominence; gradually driving out the mighty Byzantines from western Anatolia. The capital, Constantinople (present-day Istanbul) was occupied in 1453 by the 21-year-old Ottoman Emperor Mehmut-II, the Conqueror.
Successive Sultans won battles one after another and extended the Ottoman Empire over the eastern Mediterranean and Balkans. During the period, the Ottomans won major battles like Bursa in 1324, Thessaloniki was captured from the Venetians in 1387. In those days Venice was a prosperous City State (now in Italy).
The Ottoman victory at Kosovo in 1389 cut the size of Serbian power, paving the way for the Ottomans to venture into Europe, although another battle was fought in capturing Nicopolee which paved the way for further victories for Ottoman Turks.
Reverting to the Sultan Sulaiman reign (1522-1566) and thereafter in 17th century, Ottoman Empire reached its pinnacle. Historically, Sultan Sulaiman was known as "Sultan Sulaiman the Magnificent". Because, irrespective of religion, caste and creed, he treated his subjects equally and had given due dispensation of justice.
Then the Ottoman Empire encompassed a vast territory, multinational, multilingual stretching to southeast Europe, Balkans, Bulgaria, Rumania, almost all islands in the Mediterranean, Adriatic Sea, Western Asia, the Caucasus, North Africa and the Horn of Africa.
The Ottoman Empire was too large, containing 32 provinces, numerous vassal states and a number of autonomous territories.
Sultan Sulaiman himself was a great warrior and led his army from the front. Injuries did not deter him from fighting till the end. He conquered Belgrade, Hungary and brought the Danube basin under his sway. Earlier, his father Sultan Selim Khan (1512-1520) dramatically expanded the empire to the eastern and southern frontiers by defeating Shah Ismail of Safavid Persia and thereafter established rule in Eygpt and created a naval presence on the Red Sea as well as Sea of Arabia and the Indian Ocean. Iraq and the adjoining territories formed a part of the Ottoman Empire.
The political and military successes of the empire has been compared to the Roman Empire. But the 13 Sultans from 1566 to 1703 were incompetent to steer the large Empire further and the failure at the centre proved fatal.
With the 18th century Industrial Revolution, European enemies grew stronger and strong while Ottomans lagged far behind. Economically also, Ottomans got impoverished. Yet, it retained its importance for a century.
Thereafter Ottoman's pride was being gradually dented, and the decline dwarfed its glorious past. Meanwhile, in 1882, Ottomans lost control of Egypt to the British. Then continued conspiracies, arson, sabotage and intrigues against the empire in the Arab Peninsula which did the real damage.
The Europeans, mainly the British and the French, were determined to destroy and annihilate the 6-century-old Ottoman Empire. It would not be an exaggeration that, during its long history, they enjoyed a long unabated winning spree and then were faced with the bad taste of successive defeats mostly in the 19th and early 20th century.
And finally, in the aftermath of the 1st World War, the Ottoman Empire crumbled down; lost all the territories they for so long held across 2 continents. At this juncture, Mostafa Kamal, the then Commander of the Turkish 8th Army, rushed back his army from the Eastern War Theater to salvage the homeland.
After a bitter fighting; better known as War of Independence (1919-1922) the present-day Turkey was established as a secular state. Mostafa Kamal (later given the surname 'Ataturk') led the country; while the Sultanate was abolished on November 01, 1922.
Interestingly indeed, outside Turkey, there is no establishment to uphold the name of Mostafa Kamal Ataturk except Kamal Ataturk High School, at Dagonbhuiyan in the Feni District (estd: 1938). One of the Turkish Presidents visited this school and a number of meritorious students of the school enjoy Turkish scholarships every year for higher studies in that country.
During the period of WW1 and thereafter, Muslims of India had shown their concern in favour of protecting the Caliphate. But the movement ultimately died down. Incidentally, when Sultan Murad-1 (1362-1389) had transformed Ottoman Sultanate into a transcontinental empire, including the Arab peninsula, he assumed the Caliphate too. The Caliphate was eventually abolished on March 03, 1924 by the nationalist Turkish Government.
In conclusion, the TV series "Sultan Sulaiman" is providing entertainment to a good number of TV viewers. Some highlights of the Ottomans' glorious past have been presented here to show how important the history is.

The writer is Ex-Commercial Secretary, Bangladesh High Commission, London and he can be reached at e-mail: ahsan_agency@yahoo.com