WEBVTT
00:00:04.080 --> 00:00:08.080
Hello, welcome to the Dialogues and International History Podcast.
00:00:08.560 --> 00:00:10.480
I'm your host, Ari Barbalat.
00:00:10.800 --> 00:00:14.320
Today it's my honor to engage in a dialogue with Alan McHale.
00:00:15.439 --> 00:00:25.679
We will discuss his newly published book, Gods of Shadow Sultan Salim, His Ottoman Empire, and the Main of the Modern World, published in New York by W.
00:00:25.839 --> 00:00:26.000
W.
00:00:26.239 --> 00:00:28.480
Norton Company in 2020.
00:00:29.120 --> 00:00:34.079
Alan McHale is a Chase family professor of history at Yale University.
00:00:35.280 --> 00:00:46.079
Long overlooked in the Annals of World History, the Ottoman Empire served as a center of intellectual activity, geopolitical strength, and enlightened governance.
00:00:46.640 --> 00:01:06.239
During its peak in the 16th century, the Ottomans exhibiting remarkable military superiority and exclusive control over trade routes governed a large expanse and a greater population than any other global power, effectively pushing Europeans out of the Mediterranean and into the New World.
00:01:07.040 --> 00:01:21.359
However, despite its significant impact and pivotal role in shaping the modern world, the history of the Ottoman Empire has been misrepresented, distorted, and even suppressed in Western narratives for centuries.
00:01:24.719 --> 00:01:41.280
In response, Alan McHale offers a much needed reinterpretation of Ottoman history, recounting the empire's global conquests through the compelling biography of Sultan Selene I, who lived between 1470 and 1520.
00:01:41.680 --> 00:01:50.319
Selene, born to a concubine and the fourth son among his father's ten offspring, was not initially destined for the throne.
00:01:51.599 --> 00:02:05.359
Through a combination of personal charm, military skill, and the support of his exceptionally talented mother, Gul Bahar, Selim controlled the empire in 1512.
00:02:05.760 --> 00:02:18.400
His relentless ambition resulted in the tripling of the territory under Ottoman rule, establishing a government framework that persisted into the 20th century.
00:02:25.919 --> 00:02:31.199
Promoted religious pluralism, inviting Jews and other minority groups into the empire.
00:02:31.439 --> 00:02:36.080
He championed education and philosophy, and he composed his own poetry.
00:02:36.960 --> 00:02:39.680
Alan, it is an honor to be in dialogue with you today.
00:02:41.199 --> 00:02:42.159
Thanks so much, Ari.
00:02:42.400 --> 00:02:43.039
Happy to be here.
00:02:44.400 --> 00:02:46.719
To begin, can you kindly tell us about yourself?
00:02:47.439 --> 00:02:54.240
Can you say something about your personal relationship to this field of study and to this particular research project?
00:02:55.759 --> 00:02:56.319
Sure.
00:03:07.439 --> 00:03:17.840
So uh Egypt was conquered, not to get ahead of ourselves, but was conquered um by Salim um in 1517.
00:03:18.159 --> 00:03:25.360
Um initially I was interested in the nature of Ottoman rule in Egypt in the period after the Ottoman conquest.
00:03:25.520 --> 00:03:27.759
What exactly was Ottoman about Egypt?
00:03:28.080 --> 00:03:37.520
Um how can we see the relationship between Egypt and the imperial capital in Istanbul and other parts of the empire?
00:03:37.759 --> 00:03:49.039
Egypt was a key province uh for the Ottoman Empire, um, the second largest city, one of the largest populations of any province, uh, a very rich province.
00:03:49.280 --> 00:04:01.199
Um I wrote several books on um the nature of Ottoman rule in Egypt in the period between the 16th um and the early 19th centuries.
00:04:01.360 --> 00:04:07.039
Um as part of that, I was very interested in um environmental resource management.
00:04:07.199 --> 00:04:13.599
Um, and so those books are really environmental histories of this relationship of Egypt and the rest of the Ottoman Empire.
00:04:13.919 --> 00:04:24.879
Um through that work, I, as I've already kind of um previewed, I became interested in how exactly was Egypt integrated into the empire.
00:04:25.199 --> 00:04:33.839
Um and that meant a focus on this the first period, the period of the conquest, let's say, of Egypt in 1516, 1517.
00:04:34.319 --> 00:04:37.680
Um, how it was integrated into the empire.
00:04:38.000 --> 00:04:47.839
Um and from that initial kind of set of questions, uh, it became a larger set of questions about well, what did that period actually mean for the Ottoman Empire?
00:04:48.000 --> 00:04:49.839
1516, 1517.
00:04:50.160 --> 00:05:00.319
Um, uh as you already said in your intro, this is the period when the Ottoman Empire becomes the empire that we know into the 20th century.
00:05:00.480 --> 00:05:09.839
It's when it nearly triples in size, it adds um, you know, nearly double the population, it puts it in Africa, in the Indian Ocean.
00:05:10.079 --> 00:05:16.240
Um, it gives it a completely different trajectory, history, um, geography.
00:05:16.399 --> 00:05:26.240
And so I wanted to understand that moment, 1516, 1517, um, not only for the Ottoman Empire, but as a world historical moment, right?
00:05:26.959 --> 00:05:32.399
That um made the Ottomans one of the largest empires of that period.
00:05:32.879 --> 00:05:38.639
Um, and what were some of the uh knock-on effects of that conquest?
00:05:38.800 --> 00:05:47.199
How could we see it in very far from places that we might not at first suspect that there was any impact of this conquest?
00:05:47.360 --> 00:05:50.800
So, in my case, that became a story about the Caribbean.
00:05:50.959 --> 00:06:00.879
Um, others have told uh stories about um about South Asia and in this period, the Ottomans and South Asia in this period, and I touch on that a bit in the book.
00:06:01.040 --> 00:06:03.279
Um, but I'm sure we'll get into it.
00:06:03.439 --> 00:06:09.920
That was the initial kind of story of wanting to tell a global history of this moment of Ottoman imperial expansion.
00:06:11.439 --> 00:06:13.120
Who did you write this book for?
00:06:13.279 --> 00:06:16.800
Who do you have in mind as your imagined audience or audiences?
00:06:17.360 --> 00:06:20.240
Who did you have in mind as your ideal reader or readers?
00:06:22.240 --> 00:06:31.199
Yeah, I mean, there there are a few sets of of readers um in uh in in your question.
00:06:31.360 --> 00:06:44.160
Um so the f the the you know, I guess at the most the the the broadest level, I I admit I wrote this book um in such a way as to be able to reach a broad audience.
00:06:44.399 --> 00:07:04.399
Um I wanted to reach an audience of interested readers, maybe know something about the Ottoman Empire, but don't know that much, um, who would be open to an engaging book about the global impacts and global import of the Ottoman Empire.
00:07:04.639 --> 00:07:16.000
Um so it the book is in some ways an invitation to those who may not know much about the Ottoman Empire, but have enough of an interest to pick up a book on the Ottoman Empire.
00:07:16.160 --> 00:07:20.480
And I was very pleased that the book, you know, received um a large audience.
00:07:20.560 --> 00:07:34.800
I mean, it was reviewed in the York Times and The New Yorker and uh the Wall Street Journal and all kinds of places, um the Financial Times and was translated into um um eight or nine languages.
00:07:35.120 --> 00:07:38.480
So it did it did reach um many readers.
00:07:38.639 --> 00:07:40.720
So I was very I was very pleased about that.
00:07:40.879 --> 00:07:43.759
So that was the first kind of audience that I had in mind.
00:07:43.920 --> 00:07:47.600
Um, are are people who don't know a lot about the Ottoman Empire.
00:07:47.759 --> 00:08:09.519
Um, at the same time, I wanted to make an argument um to my colleagues in Ottoman history um about the how we think about the Ottoman Empire Um and how we think about um this moment again, 1516, 1517, in the history of the empire.
00:08:09.680 --> 00:08:48.080
I mean, it's it's it was always striking to me that for such an important um event in the history of the empire, this this set of conquests, um that again, all the things that we enumerated nearly tripled the size of the empire, put it in all these different locations, um, you know, made it much more of an Islamic empire, um, put it in direct contact with uh the Safavids in Iran and Indian Ocean powers and powers in North Africa for something that was so important, we actually don't have quite a good understanding of it.
00:08:48.559 --> 00:08:51.600
Um and I think that's a problem.
00:08:51.759 --> 00:09:09.679
And so part of part of the goal of the book was to um offer a story about 1516, 1517, and to sort of clue Ottoman historians into the importance of this and hopefully spur other people to uh work on on this period.
00:09:10.000 --> 00:09:15.200
Um we can maybe get into some of the reasons why I think it's been understudied.
00:09:15.440 --> 00:09:20.159
Um, but that was another audience I had in mind, were Ottoman historians.
00:09:20.320 --> 00:09:36.799
And then there were professional historians outside of Ottoman history, early modernists, um, Europeanists, Africanists, um who um you know whose work would maybe touch on Ottoman history.
00:09:36.960 --> 00:09:42.399
They knew the Ottomans were important, they were looking for ways to integrate the Ottomans into their stories.
00:09:42.720 --> 00:09:56.639
Um, so I hope that the book was able to offer them something as well, a kind of story of the Ottomans and the world that uh they could hook into through uh through uh their work.
00:09:56.720 --> 00:10:09.440
And so it was important for me to um engage deeply with historiographies outside of Ottoman history um to show them how the Ottomans mattered to uh those historiographies.
00:10:18.639 --> 00:10:25.440
If you don't mind me asking this in follow-up, what were some of those non-Ottoman historiographies that you engage with?
00:10:25.600 --> 00:10:27.679
Can you eliminate our listeners?
00:10:29.120 --> 00:10:34.000
Yeah, um, you know, very broadly speaking, early modern European history.
00:10:34.240 --> 00:10:41.519
I mean, the Ottomans were a part of um the early modern stage in um very real ways.
00:10:41.759 --> 00:10:45.039
We could argue that they were an early modern European power.
00:10:45.279 --> 00:10:47.279
Um, so that's obvious.
00:10:47.440 --> 00:11:00.720
Um, you know, more specifically, um Spain is a was a very important um the the the story of the Ottomans and the Spanish is a very important part of the book.
00:11:00.879 --> 00:11:03.039
Uh the Venetians, of course.
00:11:03.279 --> 00:11:06.320
Um, so that's the kind of Europe side.
00:11:06.720 --> 00:11:14.799
Um, the Safavids, one of the major rivals of the Ottomans um in what is today Iran and other places.
00:11:14.960 --> 00:11:17.840
Uh, so some some Safavid historiography.
00:11:18.000 --> 00:11:46.480
And then, you know, a little further afield, um, and and kind of the thing that I think is most innovative about the book is uh the engagement with historiographies of the Caribbean, um, early modern colonial histories, um, and then uh some native history as well, um in um trying to think about how the Ottoman-Spanish rivalry in the Mediterranean shaped Spanish colonization in the Caribbean.
00:11:46.559 --> 00:11:47.840
That's how I get to the Caribbean.
00:11:48.000 --> 00:11:52.240
So that was another historiography that I um that I engaged with.
00:11:52.480 --> 00:12:07.200
Um and then there's a bit in kind of Indian Ocean, uh, but it's mostly Europe, Caribbean, um, Safavid, and then you know, the Arab historiography, if we think of that as different than the Ottomans, uh, I don't know.
00:12:07.360 --> 00:12:09.679
Um but those would be the main ones.
00:12:20.639 --> 00:12:22.639
What does this book offer to beginners?
00:12:22.720 --> 00:12:27.200
How can lay persons with minimal previous knowledge grow from this study?
00:12:27.519 --> 00:12:32.639
How can those with basic or no pre-existing knowledge benefit from your research?
00:12:34.720 --> 00:12:44.879
Yeah, I mean, as I mentioned before, I think this is a book that um one can read with no prior knowledge of Ottoman history and benefit from, I hope.
00:12:45.120 --> 00:12:50.080
Um, it is not a textbook survey of Ottoman history.
00:12:50.159 --> 00:12:52.159
There are several of those out there.
00:12:52.399 --> 00:13:12.720
Um, but it is a it uses this figure of Salim uh to tell this larger story of the Ottomans and the world in a certain period, um, with implications for the later centuries as well.
00:13:13.120 --> 00:13:18.639
Um so one could read this as uh a biography, I think.
00:13:18.799 --> 00:13:26.639
Um I think about it more as kind of life and times, but if one wanted to read it just for the story of Salim, one could do that.
00:13:26.960 --> 00:13:43.200
Um can also read it as a kind of introduction to Ottoman history, because I get into many of the kind of central institutions of the Ottoman Empire, things that any student of Ottoman history um would need to understand, and things that are relevant for different periods of Ottoman history.
00:13:43.360 --> 00:14:17.200
So these are things like the um the uh structure of the Ottoman dynastic family, for example, very important, um, the legal history of the empire, um, some of its uh social institutions, uh, the structure of the Ottoman military, um, some about Ottoman economic history, so some kind of basic facets of Ottoman history that um, you know, anyone interested in, I think any part of the empire would benefit from reading.
00:14:17.519 --> 00:14:21.120
Um so so it offers all of that.
00:14:21.279 --> 00:14:32.159
The other way that I try to tell a story that would be open to people who don't know a lot about the Ottoman Empire is to hook the Ottoman story into things that are more well known.
00:14:32.399 --> 00:14:38.080
So, for example, uh 1492 is a big part of this story, right?
00:14:38.240 --> 00:14:41.440
And 1492 has several meanings.
00:14:41.679 --> 00:15:05.440
Um, it means Columbus's voyages across the Atlantic, it means uh the expulsion of the Jews from Spain, um, and it means the Reconquista, the um conquest of the Muslim uh powers uh who ruled in the Iberian Peninsula for centuries, the final conquest of those powers.
00:15:05.759 --> 00:15:12.879
Um and all of those three things had implications for the Ottomans.
00:15:13.279 --> 00:15:25.360
Um, and those are things, especially Columbus's voyages, that I think most, let's just say American readers at this point um know something about, of course, um even in the most cursory fashion.
00:15:25.519 --> 00:15:35.600
So I'm kind of piggybacking on that um understanding of 1492 to say, you know, this thing that you know about, there's actually another side to this story.
00:15:35.759 --> 00:15:40.399
There are many sides, but one of them is is the Ottoman aspects of 1492.
00:15:40.639 --> 00:15:46.399
Um, and so if you're you're interested in kind of expanding your knowledge about that, here's a story for you, right?
00:15:46.559 --> 00:16:02.159
Um similarly with something like the Protestant Reformation, I show um, you know, some of the ways that that um the Ottoman Empire was implicated in um 1517 um in uh in Europe.
00:16:02.559 --> 00:16:15.759
So I try to link into some of the um more well-known stories that I think beginners, as you called them, um might uh know about, even if they don't know much about the Ottoman Empire.
00:16:15.919 --> 00:16:35.360
More broadly, things like um, you know, the commercial revolution or the rise of capitalism, quote unquote, or um the rise of the idea of the nation state, even um, all of those are things that are happening in the early modern period and that the Ottoman Empire um you know is involved in in some way.
00:16:35.519 --> 00:16:40.960
And so if you're interested in those things, I think the book has something uh to offer.
00:16:46.559 --> 00:16:48.240
What does your book's title mean?
00:16:48.320 --> 00:16:49.600
Can you explain it?
00:16:50.799 --> 00:16:59.600
Yeah, so um uh God's Shadow, um God Shadow on Earth is an is an Ottoman title for the Sultan.
00:17:00.399 --> 00:17:06.960
Um and um there are many titles for Sultans, but that was one of them.
00:17:07.119 --> 00:17:13.119
Um, you know, its meaning is of course um perhaps obvious, right?
00:17:13.279 --> 00:17:34.640
That the the Ottoman Sultan is meant to be a sort of representative of of God on earth, or uh even divinely endowed, or you know, given some um kind of um holy uh license to uh rule on earth.
00:17:34.880 --> 00:17:52.880
Um I liked the idea of shadow as well, um, in that as we've been discussing, one of the goals of the book is to show Ottoman influence far beyond um what we might think.
00:17:53.039 --> 00:17:56.720
And so the notion of a shadow helps me to do that.
00:17:57.039 --> 00:18:02.720
Um and you know, also the kind of aspects of it being, you know, in the dark.
00:18:02.960 --> 00:18:11.279
Um, but you know, there there to be seen if one looks correctly was also something that I wanted to play with.
00:18:11.359 --> 00:18:17.440
Um, so for all those reasons, I thought it was um, you know, an evocative title.
00:18:21.920 --> 00:18:26.079
What was your guiding principle in conducting this research?
00:18:27.759 --> 00:18:33.119
Yeah, um, this guess that's gets us um to some of the things we've discussed already.
00:18:33.279 --> 00:18:41.039
I mean, as I've said, um I'm telling a story on a very large canvas.
00:18:41.119 --> 00:18:45.440
And so that meant reading very widely in very different historiographies.
00:18:45.599 --> 00:18:56.000
In terms of the kind of research innovation of this book, it is in bringing different historiographies together that are usually kept separate.
00:18:56.400 --> 00:19:08.319
So Caribbean, Spanish colonial, um, Safavid, Ottoman, Venetian, um, North African.
00:19:08.720 --> 00:19:18.240
Um, so bringing all of that work together um in a way that makes sense, in a way that works.
00:19:18.480 --> 00:19:23.200
Um, you know, for Ottoman historians, this is a little bit early.
00:19:23.279 --> 00:19:30.880
The period of Salim's rule is a little bit early for uh the archival heft that Ottoman history is known for.
00:19:31.119 --> 00:19:35.119
Um we have some court records, but not an enormous number.
00:19:35.359 --> 00:19:46.400
We have many orders and um decrees and things, um, but we don't have the kind of social history, economic history material that makes Ottoman history so rich.
00:19:46.640 --> 00:19:49.839
We have some, but not what we will have in in the later period.
00:19:50.000 --> 00:20:10.960
One of the arguments of the book, in fact, is it's precisely because of uh the conquest and the need to create um institutions of governance over this huge expansive empire, uh, that we have the development of some of these institutions that will produce the documents that we as historians use today.
00:20:11.200 --> 00:20:29.680
So the guiding principle in my research was to um make the Ottoman Empire as accessible as possible to those outside of Ottoman history by using um sources that are accessible to most people that are not necessarily in Ottoman Turkish.
00:20:29.839 --> 00:20:34.400
In fact, I try to use as many sources as possible that were not in Ottoman Turkish.
00:20:34.640 --> 00:20:47.839
Um, but it's it's really in bringing together um all of this historiography to be able to tell this specific story about the Ottomans um at the turn of the 16th century.
00:20:48.640 --> 00:21:02.000
In light of what you've just shared, if you don't mind me asking, what scholarly works have had the greatest impact on your thinking in regard to Ottoman history in general and Sultan Salim in particular?
00:21:02.799 --> 00:21:14.000
Which authors and which works challenged you most and have had the greatest uh impact on the ways that you yourself narrate this history?
00:21:15.519 --> 00:21:17.920
Yeah, uh that's a great question.
00:21:18.160 --> 00:21:25.279
So um, as I said, there's been some work done on Salim.
00:21:25.599 --> 00:21:27.599
Um but to start there.
00:21:27.920 --> 00:21:41.359
So, you know, one of my teachers, um, Leslie Pierce, um who's who's really a scholar of this of the Soleimonic period, but Soleiman is the son of Saleem, so you know, touches on on Saleem.
00:21:41.519 --> 00:21:45.839
Um her work is an example that I had before me.
00:21:46.079 --> 00:21:59.759
She wrote a um book on Hudem or Roxalana, as she's uh known in in uh in the West, um, who was the concubine, then wife.
00:22:00.160 --> 00:22:02.400
Of Soleimon and has a very interesting story.
00:22:02.480 --> 00:22:12.559
And so she she wanted to write, and she did write a um an accessible um book on uh Roxellana.
00:22:12.799 --> 00:22:16.640
So that was a kind of example that I had in my head.
00:22:16.799 --> 00:22:20.799
Um and also her, you know, her her her earlier work as well.
00:22:21.039 --> 00:22:31.839
Um, she has a book called Morality Tales that is very helpful in thinking about how territories become a part of the Ottoman Empire at the initial stage.
00:22:32.000 --> 00:22:38.720
So in as I said, in thinking about how the Arab world, let's call it, becomes a part of the Ottoman Empire.
00:22:38.880 --> 00:22:43.519
Her book called Morality Tales was was useful for me in thinking about an earlier example.
00:22:43.680 --> 00:22:52.720
Um, actually, not an earlier example, a little bit later example in the 1540s of a territory becoming a part of the Ottoman Empire.
00:22:53.039 --> 00:22:54.960
Uh, so that's one person.
00:22:55.200 --> 00:23:10.880
Um, you know, uh in terms of you know, examples I had in my head, people like David Abulafia, who's a historian of the Mediterranean, um, and writes um, he's a story, historian of many things, but one of them is the Mediterranean.
00:23:11.119 --> 00:23:28.559
But his ability to link the Mediterranean to the Atlantic world is something that was very important for me and that um I um I I you know the the is something that I wanted to do in my own in my own work.
00:23:28.720 --> 00:23:35.920
Um so that that was an example of of of um you know a book that I I had in mind in writing this.
00:23:36.319 --> 00:23:47.200
Um you know, there there are people who have written kind of more specific um monographic accounts that were very helpful in thinking about um this work.
00:23:47.440 --> 00:24:07.119
So um a book that comes to mind is um um uh Caroline Cook has a book called Uh Forbidden Passages about uh the Inquisition Um and Moriscos and Muslims in um colonial Spanish America.
00:24:07.200 --> 00:24:17.440
So that book was very helpful in again, kind of trying to link some old world things to uh to um uh to the new world.
00:24:17.759 --> 00:24:20.799
Um yeah, so those are some examples of of things.
00:24:20.880 --> 00:24:28.240
And then they were more specific on on different periods that I was uh um work that I that I uh relied upon.
00:24:30.400 --> 00:24:36.240
Can you comment on Selim's tenure as governor of Trabzon?
00:24:39.039 --> 00:24:39.519
Sure.
00:24:39.759 --> 00:24:47.519
Uh yeah, that's a very important part of um his uh biography, and in some ways, maybe the most important, right?
00:24:47.599 --> 00:24:52.160
Uh he spends more time there than um than anywhere else.
00:24:52.400 --> 00:24:59.039
Um and he goes there as a as a essentially a teenager um with his mother.
00:24:59.440 --> 00:25:05.680
Now we should stop there and just talk a little bit about why that is and how that worked.
00:25:06.000 --> 00:25:13.759
So there's what Leslie Pierce, the historian that I mentioned already, has described as one mother, one son.
00:25:13.839 --> 00:25:16.799
And this is has to do with Ottoman dynastic politics.
00:25:17.039 --> 00:25:26.880
So almost always Ottoman sultans created heirs um from their concubines, not from their legal wives.
00:25:26.960 --> 00:25:30.480
So they had both wives and concubines in the Ottoman harem.
00:25:31.200 --> 00:25:38.960
Um, and um for obvious reasons, this is a way to produce as many children as possible very quickly.
00:25:39.200 --> 00:25:52.799
Um and uh once a woman in the harem bore a son, that son theoretically uh could become the next Ottoman Sultan, right?
00:25:52.960 --> 00:25:54.559
Was an Ottoman prince.
00:25:54.799 --> 00:26:02.319
Um and even though his mother is an enslaved woman, uh he is born free and is born a royal.
00:26:03.039 --> 00:26:20.799
Once a concubine bore a son, usually, usually, um the sultan um uh ceased um sexual relations with that woman, and her fate and that of her son are tied to one another.
00:26:21.920 --> 00:26:32.240
And she has an interest in the kind of jockeying for power that always occurred in Ottoman succession uh struggles because being the mother of the Sultan was a very powerful position.
00:26:32.400 --> 00:26:42.079
And so she had an interest in her one son, uh, the son that um she she created with the Sultan to win, to be the next Sultan.
00:26:42.240 --> 00:26:51.039
So usually what happened was mothers and sons, as kind of duos, as tag teams, would be assigned to positions around the empire to sort of prove themselves, right?
00:26:51.200 --> 00:26:57.440
Prove themselves as as um governors, as um military folks, etc.
00:26:57.839 --> 00:26:59.440
Really the sons to prove themselves.
00:26:59.599 --> 00:27:10.240
But because the sons were often teenagers or even younger, the mothers play a huge role in their lives and governance in these places and kind of um, you know, calling the shots.
00:27:10.400 --> 00:27:16.400
And so this was the case with um Salim and his mother Gulbahar as well, uh, when they're in Trapzon.
00:27:16.720 --> 00:27:20.880
So Gulbihar is perhaps the most powerful person in Trapzon in this period.
00:27:20.960 --> 00:27:23.200
Um, she endows institutions.
00:27:23.839 --> 00:27:33.279
Um, there's a soup kitchen that is still uh and a mosque complex that is still um uh still bears her name in Trabzon.
00:27:34.000 --> 00:27:45.680
Um she uh is there presiding over the kind of governing council of the city, um with Salim, of course, but um but she's there especially when he's when he's young.
00:27:46.160 --> 00:27:49.680
Um but Trabzon is on the very edge of the empire, right?
00:27:49.759 --> 00:27:52.880
It's it's in some ways the furthest place you could get from Istanbul.
00:27:53.039 --> 00:27:59.759
And so the fact that he's assigned there, that he and Gubbahar are assigned there, is also a sign that they were not favored.
00:28:00.000 --> 00:28:03.599
Salim was not favored to become the next sultan, right?
00:28:04.240 --> 00:28:11.359
Uh he was the the the third of his surviving um uh half-brothers, right?
00:28:11.519 --> 00:28:13.920
They all have different mothers with the same father.
00:28:14.079 --> 00:28:16.400
Um, and it's kind of third in line, right?
00:28:16.559 --> 00:28:22.640
His eldest son, his eldest sorry, half-brother is the one who is favored to take over uh from their father.
00:28:22.880 --> 00:28:29.119
But it's really in Trabzon that um Selim uses that disadvantage and turns it into an advantage for himself.
00:28:29.279 --> 00:28:40.160
It's there that he cuts his teeth on governance, on running a place, on managing people, um, on being the kind of uh you know authority in charge.
00:28:40.480 --> 00:29:05.599
It's there also that he makes a very important um kind of argument to the military elite of the empire, saying things like the Janissaries, the famed elite uh military of the empire, you know, has um um not, has become too comfortable, is no longer the kind of elite fighting force they used to be.
00:29:05.920 --> 00:29:14.240
They need to engage in military action more, um, and that I'm gonna be a champion of this in a way that my father wasn't.
00:29:14.480 --> 00:29:31.440
So he leads from Trabzon um these military expeditions into Georgia, right, to sort of prove his military medal and to prove to the Ottoman military elite that they should back him in the struggle to become the next sultan.
00:29:31.759 --> 00:29:43.680
So Trabzon is a very important uh posting for um uh Salim and kind of you know, jumping off point for the succession battle with his half-brothers.
00:29:43.839 --> 00:29:46.880
It's there that he also learns about the Safavids, right?
00:29:46.960 --> 00:30:00.400
It's kind of face to face with um not exactly the Safavids in this period, but those who will become the Safavids, um, and understands that um you know the border of the Ottoman Empire needs to be defended.
00:30:00.799 --> 00:30:18.240
Um so um, you know, Trabzon and the posting there with his mother, um, it's there where he has Suleiman, his son, who becomes the next Sultan, and it's there, it's from there that he launches his kind of bid uh to become the next sultan.
00:30:19.759 --> 00:30:23.440
What was the place of the Ottoman Empire in world history?
00:30:24.160 --> 00:30:27.359
Yeah, I mean, you know, as we've been saying, I think large.
00:30:27.759 --> 00:30:34.160
Um and um it's something that I hope my book can contribute to people thinking about.
00:30:34.319 --> 00:30:45.759
I mean, the Ottoman Empire was the longest lasting empire in um Islamic history, 600 years, you know, roughly from 1300 into World War I.
00:30:46.480 --> 00:30:53.839
Um, one of the longest lasting empires in world history of any empire, um, on three continents.
00:30:54.400 --> 00:31:08.000
Um, if we think about it was a late medieval state, it was an early modern state, it was a 19th-century reforming state, it was a 20th century uh state.
00:31:08.319 --> 00:31:12.240
Um, it was very different in different places, right?
00:31:12.559 --> 00:31:16.720
Um, it ruled over 30 modern-day countries.
00:31:17.119 --> 00:31:24.240
Um polity um on the world stage and in world history.
00:31:24.400 --> 00:31:34.160
And I think we're we've only begun to scratch the surface of um why it's um so important to world history.
00:31:34.240 --> 00:32:12.240
But you know, as I try to argue in the book, if if one is interested in essentially anywhere in the world, that's that's too large a statement, but um in many places in the world, um let's say Europe, North Africa, um parts of sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East, of course, uh the Caucasus, Central Asia, uh, the Indian Ocean world, um, parts of Southeast Asia, um, the Caribbean, um, and early America, one should be interested in Ottoman history.
00:32:12.480 --> 00:32:17.680
Ottoman history has something to say to all of those places and all of those historiographies.
00:32:17.920 --> 00:32:30.319
Um, in part, it's simply because of its size and its longevity, but it's also in part because of its uh you know location at the kind of strategic crossroads of the old world.
00:32:30.960 --> 00:32:48.160
Um and you know, this moment, again, the the reign of Salim is the moment in which it becomes uh the largest empire, um, the the the the largest it will it will um it will be for the rest of its history.
00:32:48.400 --> 00:33:12.000
It adds some territory under Suleiman and things, but in terms of you know what one of the largest single expansion of the empire, it is in this period, and this is roughly the shape that the empire will have um from 1517 into World War uh one, adding and subtracting some territory at the edges, but basically, this is the empire for the next uh for the next 400 years.
00:33:12.160 --> 00:33:21.200
Um, and so again, this period is is is very important for understanding um the place of the Ottoman Empire in world history.
00:33:23.039 --> 00:33:27.359
In light of what you've just shared, don't want to be asking a follow-up question.
00:33:27.680 --> 00:33:33.920
In your scholarly opinion, what factors contributed to the longevity of the Ottoman Empire?
00:33:34.880 --> 00:33:39.599
Yeah, I mean, Ottoman historians love to debate that.
00:33:39.920 --> 00:34:00.160
Um you know, there is a there is a I don't want to say consensus, but there is a scholarly sense, if I had to kind of summarize very broadly, um, that it is in some ways the light touch of the Ottoman Empire that it allows it to um rule in certain places for so long.
00:34:00.640 --> 00:34:04.160
So, you know, by way of example, how did this this play out on the ground?
00:34:04.319 --> 00:34:24.320
So in you know, wherever the Ottomans conquered it, let's just stick with 1516, 1517 in the Arab world, um they would create various institutions, something like the Ottoman court, they would collect taxes, um, and they would they would conscript men for war.
00:34:25.039 --> 00:34:28.400
So in the broadest brush strokes, right?
00:34:28.559 --> 00:34:53.199
So as long as um people were paying taxes and tax revenue was flowing to the empire, in terms of the daily governance in in these areas and in others, the empire was was fine to let local elites, older institutions, um, important families, sometimes even previous governing powers, uh, to uh rule in those areas, right?
00:34:53.280 --> 00:34:55.599
To continue to kind of manage those places.
00:34:55.760 --> 00:35:02.239
The idea being that um, you know, if it ain't broke, don't fix it a little bit, right?
00:35:02.400 --> 00:35:12.159
And as long as you're paying taxes and are not rebelling and give some amount of of uh allegiance to the Ottoman Empire, that we're fine for you to manage your affairs, right?
00:35:12.400 --> 00:35:18.320
This also means that, for example, in places like the court, uh, the language of the court is the local language.
00:35:18.480 --> 00:35:21.199
So the court records from Damascus are in Arabic.
00:35:21.360 --> 00:35:29.519
Um, you know, the court records from uh Bosnian, from Bosnia are in um are in Bosnian, right?
00:35:29.599 --> 00:35:32.079
In in in in Bosnian server Croatian.
00:35:32.239 --> 00:35:42.239
So um in whatever place the the the um the empire was ruling, it allowed um the kind of uh local elites to to control itself.
00:35:42.480 --> 00:35:47.679
So um, you know, that lasted and worked fine for hundreds of years.
00:35:47.920 --> 00:36:16.159
In the 19th century, all of that begins to change because of idea, growing ideas of nationalism, um uh some colonial powers using, you know, interested in um gaining footholds in the Middle East and wanting to break up the Ottoman Empire and so fomenting kind of local elite into thinking that, hey, why should you pay allegiance and taxes to the Ottoman Empire when you could, you know, be your own sort of local rulers?
00:36:16.480 --> 00:36:18.880
So um, you know, all of that will crack.
00:36:19.119 --> 00:36:26.639
But um it's the kind of light imperial touch uh of the Ottoman Empire um that allows it to maintain.
00:36:26.800 --> 00:36:29.039
Now, we can overstate that.
00:36:29.599 --> 00:36:31.679
Um, and Ottoman historians have.
00:36:31.840 --> 00:36:44.159
Um people talk about you know, a kind of flexible empire or a durable empire or a tolerant empire and all of those things um to a degree, but we can over we can overstate that.
00:36:44.239 --> 00:36:47.199
So you see that in terms of religious pluralism, right?
00:36:47.360 --> 00:37:01.840
So the Ottoman Empire is often considered to be a place in which non-Muslims um were um given some amount of autonomy, were able to use their own communal and religious laws, um, etc.
00:37:02.159 --> 00:37:04.400
Unlike, say, Spain, right?
00:37:04.719 --> 00:37:11.440
Or uh other parts of Europe where it was much more difficult to be uh a non-Christian in that case.
00:37:11.679 --> 00:37:30.800
Um and so, yes, to a certain degree, that's true about the Ottoman Empire, and I discussed some of that in my book, but we also have moments of anti-Christian and anti-Jewish violence um in the early modern period, you know, never mind at the end of the empire, where we have you know hugely catastrophic um versions of that violence.
00:37:31.280 --> 00:37:40.480
Um Salim himself goes after uh the the Shiite community of Anatolia um on one of his campaigns.
00:37:40.639 --> 00:37:51.280
Um, so you know, um longevity, yes, tolerance maybe, you know, flexibility maybe, um, but only to a point.
00:37:53.519 --> 00:37:59.840
Why has the Ottoman Empire here not been considered a bigger part of global history?
00:38:02.159 --> 00:38:09.119
Yeah, um that is a good question and a somewhat difficult question to answer.
00:38:09.360 --> 00:38:11.280
I'll try to answer it in a couple ways.
00:38:11.440 --> 00:38:21.280
I mean, what if we think about uh just to put it crudely, you know, non-Ottoman historians, people looking um at the Ottoman uh at the Ottoman Empire from the outside.
00:38:22.239 --> 00:38:42.480
Um you know, in in the 19th century, um, which is the kind of beginning of uh professional history in the way that we inhabit it today, um, written mostly by uh European historians.
00:38:42.559 --> 00:38:46.320
Uh you know, the Ottoman Empire is losing at that point, okay?
00:38:46.639 --> 00:38:48.719
Just to put it again very crudely.
00:38:48.960 --> 00:38:58.079
Um, and so one of the things that these historians are trying to explain is why is it that this once powerful empire seems to be on the back foot?
00:38:58.400 --> 00:39:02.159
Um so there's already a sense of Ottoman weakness, right?
00:39:02.239 --> 00:39:05.360
The Sickman of Europe uh narrative.
00:39:05.840 --> 00:39:17.039
And so at the beginning of a kind of writing of global history, if you want to call it that, or let's just call it professional history, maybe, um, the Ottomans are already in a kind of lesser role.
00:39:17.519 --> 00:39:33.280
Um there's also a sense that I think we have to admit that maybe beginning even in the 19th century, but certainly today and for the past, I would say, I don't know, century, maybe half century.
00:39:33.440 --> 00:39:47.920
Um, it's hard for most to understand Islam as a global force, as a, again, to put it crudely, positive force in world history.
00:39:48.159 --> 00:39:48.480
Okay.
00:39:49.280 --> 00:39:56.320
Islam as enemy, as other, as reason for war, as all of that, fine.
00:39:56.559 --> 00:40:13.760
But Islam as civilizational power, as uh, you know, place of letters, as um influencing other places, as a partner in geopolitics, um, as a place of wealth, of power.
00:40:14.159 --> 00:40:18.480
Um, you know, it's harder for most people to grasp.
00:40:18.559 --> 00:40:35.760
And so I think um, you know, trying to tell a story of the Ottomans as a as a world power is it it takes it takes too many steps to get there for most people, even professional historians.
00:40:36.880 --> 00:40:47.119
Um, so a kind of knee-jerk reaction against Islam as world historical uh uh important force is is a piece of this.
00:40:47.440 --> 00:40:53.199
Now I think Ottoman historians, I don't want to say are also to blame here.
00:40:53.280 --> 00:41:13.920
Uh it's not necessarily blame, but um just to to uh you know point out some facts, um you know, Ottoman history uh in the West, in America, let's say, since we're um since we're we're we're we're talking about that in large part, um, is a relatively new discipline.
00:41:14.400 --> 00:41:21.440
We might date it to the 70s, um maybe a little bit earlier in the United States, but but really the 70s.
00:41:21.679 --> 00:41:28.960
So um that means we've only had a few generations really of people being trained in Ottoman history in the United States.
00:41:29.280 --> 00:41:31.119
Um that's fine.
00:41:31.199 --> 00:41:35.360
Uh there's no reason Americans have to be the ones to tell Ottoman history.
00:41:35.519 --> 00:41:43.440
Um, but um that has meant that um it's been shaped in a certain kind of way because it's a small amount of time.
00:41:43.599 --> 00:41:52.320
Uh highly empirical, um, sometimes obscurantist in the way that it's been told.
00:41:52.480 --> 00:42:03.360
Um, because of the sources, people are are very, very wrapped up in their sources and are not able to tell bigger stories outside of those sources.
00:42:03.599 --> 00:42:19.360
Um history is one of the places where Orientalism is alive and well, of people wanting to um explain complex social political phenomena through the reading of, you know, sometimes even a single text.
00:42:19.760 --> 00:42:31.119
Um, so that has made Ottoman history um, you know, um difficult for people to read.
00:42:31.599 --> 00:42:33.119
Let's just put it that way.
00:42:33.360 --> 00:42:45.519
Um, and um Ottoman histories, Ottoman historians are in in large measure talking to themselves, um, and a very small number of people uh even within that.
00:42:45.920 --> 00:42:58.800
Um and so you know, we've done ourselves a disservice in showing other historians and then a kind of educated public uh why they should care about Ottoman history.
00:42:58.960 --> 00:43:03.039
Now, again, there are plenty of people who are doing precisely what I just said.
00:43:03.199 --> 00:43:07.119
Uh, I don't want to I don't want to uh draw too stark a picture here.
00:43:07.360 --> 00:43:15.119
Um, but and there are plenty, there are plenty of of Ottoman historians who have reached far beyond the field and who are read widely and all of that.
00:43:15.280 --> 00:43:32.159
Um, but you know, painting in very broad brushstrokes and as part of the reason why there are you know it reasons that are internal to the field, and then I think reasons that have to do with geopolitics and a kind of Islamophobia that um are the reasons why um Ottoman history is not more well known.
00:43:33.519 --> 00:43:44.400
In light of what you've just shared, in your scholarly opinion, what is the legacy of the Ottoman Empire in the history of colonialism and the history of imperialism?
00:43:44.880 --> 00:43:48.960
What is the spectrum of opinion and historiography regarding this?
00:43:51.599 --> 00:43:52.960
Um yeah.
00:43:54.320 --> 00:43:58.000
Uh that's a good question.
00:43:58.079 --> 00:44:02.800
So I mean in in in the Post-Ottoman world, let's say.
00:44:02.880 --> 00:44:11.039
So in those places that used to be ruled by the Ottoman Empire but um ceased being so, something of the Arab world and the Balkans.
00:44:11.199 --> 00:44:19.119
Um, again, it's different from place to place, but in pretty broad brush strokes, there is a story of you know, the Ottoman yoke, right?
00:44:19.280 --> 00:44:30.159
The Ottomans as foreign colonial domination in these regions that didn't allow the Syrian, Egyptian, Bulgarian, etc.
00:44:30.480 --> 00:44:32.719
nation to thrive, right?
00:44:32.880 --> 00:44:34.400
That suppressed them.
00:44:34.719 --> 00:44:45.840
Um, you know, these are these are uh post-imperial nationalisms that are um painting Ottoman history as one of you know the British in India, essentially.
00:44:45.920 --> 00:44:47.760
That's that's what they're trying to say.
00:44:48.000 --> 00:44:54.000
There's been a whole generation, um, I don't say a whole generation, but you know, there's been a good 20 years of pushback against that.
00:44:54.239 --> 00:45:02.480
My own work is a part of that, of trying to show how 300 years of Ottoman rule in a place like Egypt, you know, had an impact.
00:45:02.639 --> 00:45:04.480
And not all of it was terrible.
00:45:04.639 --> 00:45:08.239
Um, and it's worth examining in uh in real ways.
00:45:08.639 --> 00:45:15.440
So that's uh that's that's one of the legacies in terms of um colonial and imperial history.
00:45:15.679 --> 00:45:25.920
At the same time, you know, Ottoman historians, going back to something we were discussing earlier, like to point out that you know the Ottomans were a quote unquote light imperial power.
00:45:26.000 --> 00:45:36.320
They were not the French in Algeria, they were not trying to turn Algerians into French or trying to inculcate French culture into the natives, quote unquote, right?
00:45:36.400 --> 00:45:45.039
The Ottomans were never trying to um make everyone in Bulgaria or the Arab world speak Ottoman Turkish, right?
00:45:45.199 --> 00:45:48.559
Um, it wasn't that form of colonialism.
00:45:48.800 --> 00:45:56.800
So um it's you know, so that is not meant as an excuse, quote unquote, for Ottoman imperialism.
00:45:56.880 --> 00:46:01.679
Uh, but but some historians have talked about it in that way, and I think that's something that we need to be careful of.
00:46:01.840 --> 00:46:12.719
I mean, there are sort of more obvious examples of Ottoman colonialism later in the empire, um, at the end of the 19th century, places like Yemen, for example.
00:46:12.960 --> 00:46:20.719
Um, and Ottoman historians debate whether or not we can speak about Ottoman colonialism in uh at the end of the 19th century.
00:46:21.199 --> 00:46:29.920
Um, but yes, um, and and you know, there is a comparative empire mode in which the Ottomans are often treated.
00:46:30.159 --> 00:46:34.800
Uh, this is sometimes the early modern Muslim empires, the Ottomans the Sahov is the Mughals.
00:46:35.119 --> 00:46:44.719
Uh, sometimes it's with other um European empires, let's call them, the Romanovs or the Habsburgs or something like that.
00:46:44.880 --> 00:46:49.920
Um, and so there are many ways in which one can do this kind of comparative imperial work with other empires.
00:46:50.079 --> 00:46:57.119
And that's one of the ways that the Ottomans have been done comparatively and also in the realm of um of imperial history.
00:46:57.440 --> 00:47:08.719
Um yeah, I I I think in in some ways, maybe that moment has passed, the kind of comparative imperial histories, but um, you know, we'll see.
00:47:11.440 --> 00:47:16.880
Can you comment on the interconnections between the Ottoman Empire and the Atlantic world?
00:47:17.199 --> 00:47:20.960
And the interconnections between the Ottoman Empire and the Americas.
00:47:22.000 --> 00:47:22.639
Yeah.
00:47:23.119 --> 00:47:30.880
So this is something that you know I'm very interested in doing in the book, In God Shadow, and um and in some of my um current work.
00:47:32.000 --> 00:47:42.079
And um this is not something that um Ottoman historians have tended to do, um, you know, with with a couple caveats.
00:47:42.480 --> 00:47:55.599
So, you know, there's a very famous um uh translation of um European sources about the quote-unquote New Worlds into Ottoman Turkish.
00:47:55.760 --> 00:47:59.440
It's a compilation of um Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish sources.
00:47:59.679 --> 00:48:04.800
Um that was read in the Ottoman Empire in elite circles.
00:48:05.119 --> 00:48:10.079
So um, so there the the there is some not that's a 16th century text.
00:48:10.159 --> 00:48:14.480
So there's some knowledge um and interest even in the New World.
00:48:14.559 --> 00:48:19.679
So that's an example of Ottoman, you know, Ottoman connections with the Atlantic and with the Americas.
00:48:20.079 --> 00:48:30.320
At the very end of the empire, of course, we have a lot of immigration from the Ottoman Empire to the Americas, both to places like Brazil, but also to North America.
00:48:30.400 --> 00:48:31.920
Uh, but that's very late, right?
00:48:32.000 --> 00:48:35.119
Like 1870s, 1880s, and going forward.
00:48:35.599 --> 00:48:48.639
Um apart from that, there aren't too many examples of connections between the Ottomans and the Atlantic and um and andor the Americas.
00:48:48.800 --> 00:48:54.000
In part that's because the Ottomans never had any territory on the Atlantic, right?
00:48:54.239 --> 00:49:03.039
As I discuss in the book, Salim, it seems, had some designs on conquering Morocco, as did other Ottoman sultans, but never actually did, right?
00:49:03.280 --> 00:49:05.519
Morocco is never made a part of the Ottoman Empire.
00:49:05.679 --> 00:49:09.199
And that might have changed, you know, the fortunes of the Ottoman Empire.
00:49:09.360 --> 00:49:12.320
It would have given it, you know, a clearer Atlantic history.
00:49:12.559 --> 00:49:17.280
Nevertheless, saying all of that, in the book, I am interested in this.
00:49:17.440 --> 00:49:25.039
Um, and the way that it plays out is through the Ottoman-Spanish rivalry in the Mediterranean.
00:49:25.119 --> 00:49:59.119
So I spent a lot of time in the book discussing how someone like Columbus, but that generation of um Europeans, um, many of whom, well, some of whom went to the Americas, um, were raised in a world in which the Ottoman Empire was a powerful force in the Mediterranean, was pushing west um in North Africa, was controlling trade routes um to the east, was holding um uh the Holy Land, was holding Jerusalem, right?
00:49:59.199 --> 00:50:01.280
The Mamluks and then the Ottomans.
00:50:01.440 --> 00:50:17.679
Um, a world in which Islam was both in the ascendancy in the Mediterranean and um and you know, uh this this political, theological, economic threat to European Christendom.
00:50:18.159 --> 00:50:34.719
Um and how for people like Ferdinand and Isabella, um something like the Reconquista and eventually Columbus's voyages is very much seen as part of their kind of quote-unquote global war with Islam.
00:50:34.960 --> 00:50:38.639
Too strong a statement, but um they speak in those terms, right?
00:50:38.719 --> 00:50:46.159
That the Reconquista is the beginning of the end for Islam uh in the world and and the ascendancy of Catholicism for them.
00:50:46.480 --> 00:51:04.719
So um so the so the the Spanish, especially, right, because of the presence of uh Muslims in Spain and Muslim empires in Spain, Muslim polities, um are very much in this mode of kind of um Christendom and Islam.
00:51:05.199 --> 00:51:25.039
Now, this means that um for people like Columbus, Cortes, and other of the conquistadors, um they often fought against Muslims around the Mediterranean, someone like Cortes in North Africa um uh or in Iberia, right, itself.
00:51:25.679 --> 00:51:33.360
Um, and that much of their kind of warring lives uh was against Muslims as enemies, right?
00:51:33.519 --> 00:51:36.800
Muslims as the great other of Christendom.
00:51:37.280 --> 00:51:41.840
Now, when they cross the Atlantic, they take that memory with them, right?
00:51:41.920 --> 00:51:44.960
They take that kind of mental landscape with them.
00:51:45.280 --> 00:51:50.320
And so this helps us to explain, I think, some very odd things.
00:51:50.719 --> 00:52:02.800
Um, Columbus, for example, likens the scarves of Taino women to what he calls Moorish sashes, that is, the clothing of Muslim women in Spain.
00:52:03.119 --> 00:52:07.360
Cortes says that he sees mosques in what is today Mexico, right?
00:52:07.440 --> 00:52:09.440
He calls Montezuma a sultan.
00:52:09.920 --> 00:52:26.159
They very much use the language of Islam in the Caribbean to try to understand the vast difference that they see before them in the Caribbean amongst the indigenous peoples of these territories.
00:52:26.719 --> 00:52:39.360
Um, and so I think we need to understand that as a kind of remnant, as an effect of the ascendancy of the Ottomans and other Muslim powers in the Mediterranean um in this period.
00:52:39.519 --> 00:52:58.880
And so that's that's how I um you know work to connect the Atlantic world and the Americas to uh the Ottomans and other Muslim powers around the Mediterranean to show how impactful um that um confrontation was around the Mediterranean.
00:52:59.039 --> 00:53:05.599
Um, so much so that you can see its kind of echoes in the Mediterranean in the uh Caribbean, right?
00:53:05.760 --> 00:53:24.639
That um that uh the Taino, uh, that um uh the Aztec and others are are thought to be somehow connected to Islam in this kind of fantastical, you know, completely incorrect, ahistorical way, um, but in a way that we need to explain.
00:53:24.800 --> 00:53:35.599
Um and I think that the way to explain that is um through understanding just how powerful the Ottomans and other Muslims were um around the Mediterranean.
00:53:35.760 --> 00:53:38.320
Now, not everything is confrontation around the Mediterranean.
00:53:38.400 --> 00:53:41.840
I I just want to be clear here between Islam and Christendom, right?
00:53:42.000 --> 00:53:56.639
We have many examples of you know quite copacetic relationships, of collaboration, um, of trade, of um using each other's institutions, uh technological innovation, all that kind of thing.
00:53:56.880 --> 00:54:05.119
Um but uh you know, for telling my story, I I'm much more interested in um in some of the other effects.
00:54:06.239 --> 00:54:20.639
In light of what you've just shared, just as a follow-up question, in your scholarly opinion, how helpful or unhelpful is counterfactual reasoning in thinking about the history of the Ottoman Empire?
00:54:21.199 --> 00:54:30.239
Are there any counterfactual scenarios whereby if X happened rather than Y, or if A did not occur but B did?
00:54:31.519 --> 00:54:35.920
Aspects of the history of the Ottoman Empire may have turned out differently.
00:54:36.880 --> 00:54:52.480
Do you consider counterfactual history to be problematic and thinking about the Ottoman Empire or do you find it to lead to fruitful conjectures about hypothetical possibilities?
00:54:54.000 --> 00:54:57.840
Yeah, I don't find counterfactual history to be helpful.
00:54:58.480 --> 00:55:04.639
Um I I don't think it's you know, as a kind of intellectual exercise, maybe, but to what end, right?
00:55:04.800 --> 00:55:09.360
I mean, to say that what if the Ottomans had captured Morocco?
00:55:09.840 --> 00:55:11.440
What would have happened?
00:55:11.840 --> 00:55:18.480
I mean, okay, sure, but you know, as a historian, I'm interested in what happened, not what didn't happen.
00:55:18.800 --> 00:55:27.199
Um so um, you know, in that in that way, I don't find uh counterfactual history to be that helpful.
00:55:31.519 --> 00:55:36.239
What transpired in the years 1516 and 1517?
00:55:37.199 --> 00:55:44.000
Why were 15, 16, and 1517 so important for Ottoman history?
00:55:45.039 --> 00:55:56.000
Yeah, so um, you know, as as we've said already, this is this is the period in which um Salim conquers you know what we conventionally think of as the Middle East.
00:55:56.079 --> 00:55:58.639
So let's spend a little time talking about that.
00:55:58.880 --> 00:56:08.000
Um, Salim is only on the throne for eight years, 18 uh sorry, 1512 um to uh 1520.
00:56:09.039 --> 00:56:12.320
Um he dies at the age of 50, you know, fairly young.
00:56:12.480 --> 00:56:17.440
Um we think maybe of plague, but um, you know, we're not we're not sure exactly.
00:56:17.760 --> 00:56:20.480
So eight years is not that long, right?
00:56:20.719 --> 00:56:30.239
His son, Suleiman, who who comes to the throne after him, um rules, you know, by contrast with 46 years, the longest reigning sultan in Ottoman history.
00:56:30.320 --> 00:56:31.679
Uh Suleiman is.
00:56:31.760 --> 00:56:35.840
And I have arguments as to why that might be that relate to what Salim did.
00:56:36.000 --> 00:56:40.480
But nevertheless, um Saleim does a lot in those eight years.
00:56:40.639 --> 00:56:44.159
Um, he's basically constantly on campaign.
00:56:44.559 --> 00:56:59.760
Um he has uh a campaign of you know, enormously important for Ottoman history campaign against the Safavids that culminates in the Battle of Chalderon um in 1514.
00:57:00.480 --> 00:57:08.800
Um and you know comes back to Istanbul and then basically leaves again to uh to go on this campaign against the Mamluks.
00:57:08.960 --> 00:57:33.519
So the Mamluk Empire, based in Cairo, is an empire that um had ruled for uh uh over 200 years at this point, um, from Cairo uh to the west in North Africa and then up into Greater Syria, um, you know, Palestine, uh Jordan, parts of what is today Saudi Arabia, etc.
00:57:33.920 --> 00:57:45.360
Um, and um, you know, is is the kind of you know major um empire in you know the Middle East.
00:57:45.519 --> 00:57:55.599
Um the Ottomans up to that point, up to 15, 16, 15, 17, are basically a Balkan and Western Anatolian empire.
00:57:55.840 --> 00:58:00.159
So if you think the kind of western half of what is today Turkey and the Balkans, right?
00:58:00.480 --> 00:58:03.519
Majority Christian subject population, right?
00:58:03.599 --> 00:58:11.360
So the Ottoman ruling elite are Muslims, but um, the vast majority of the people they rule over are Orthodox Christians, right?
00:58:11.599 --> 00:58:21.360
Other kinds of Christians, some Jews, um, but the vast majority non-Muslim and almost, you know, not exclusively, but for the most part Christian.
00:58:21.679 --> 00:58:22.000
Okay.
00:58:22.559 --> 00:58:25.920
So um, you know, it's a smallish state.
00:58:26.320 --> 00:58:32.000
Unclear what will be the fate of the Ottomans at that point to speak about counterfactual histories.
00:58:32.800 --> 00:58:45.760
But um through a complicated set of kind of diplomatic wrangling threats and um perceived opportunities, Celine begins this campaign against the Mamluks.
00:58:46.320 --> 00:59:03.679
So he marches first to Anatolia, and I have maps in the book, of course, um, and then south to Syria, right, into Jerusalem, um, across Sinai, eventually to Cairo, right?
00:59:04.239 --> 00:59:06.480
It sacks the Mamluk Empire, right?
00:59:07.760 --> 00:59:16.559
Salim travels further in this in this um campaign than any other Ottoman Sultan had up to that point, right?
00:59:16.639 --> 00:59:19.039
Going to Cairo from Istanbul.
00:59:19.440 --> 00:59:44.800
Um and uh this this defeat basically gives him what were the Manlup territories, so North Africa through to kind of what is today Algeria, um, all of Greater Syria, a lot of um the Hejaz, the western coast of Saudi Arabia, the Arabian Peninsula, um, etc.
00:59:46.079 --> 00:59:57.840
And um and Gisim, Cairo, and all these major cities, Jerusalem, Damascus, these are cities, um, the holy cities uh in the Hejaz, of course.
00:59:58.000 --> 01:00:00.320
These are cities of huge religious import.
01:00:00.960 --> 01:00:05.519
Um, these are economic centers, uh, these are population centers.
01:00:05.760 --> 01:00:09.760
So this more than doubles the population of the empire.
01:00:10.239 --> 01:00:13.920
Uh, it makes it much more of a Muslim empire, right?
01:00:14.079 --> 01:00:19.039
This is the beginning of the population becoming majority Muslim instead of Christian.
01:00:19.679 --> 01:00:25.440
Um it makes it obviously geographically much more expansive.
01:00:26.159 --> 01:00:39.519
Um it essentially gives the Ottomans all of the Eastern Mediterranean through Egypt and the Hejaz, uh, ports on the Red Sea that allow it to reach the Indian Ocean.
01:00:40.159 --> 01:00:45.440
Um, it gives it a kind of longer border with the Safavids, right?
01:00:45.760 --> 01:00:59.519
It's it's it's a completely it completely changes the empire demographically, ideologically, in terms of its sources of legitimation, uh, geopolitically, in all kinds of ways.
01:00:59.679 --> 01:01:06.159
So, again, for me, 1516, 1517 is the most important kind of moment in Ottoman history.
01:01:06.400 --> 01:01:06.639
Right?
01:01:06.800 --> 01:01:13.920
1453 is often talked about in that way as the conquest of Constantinople, hugely important, no doubt.
01:01:14.159 --> 01:01:17.039
Um, essentially the end of the Byzantine Empire.
01:01:17.440 --> 01:01:23.360
But, you know, it doesn't change the shape of the Ottoman Empire to any huge degree, right?
01:01:23.440 --> 01:01:26.159
The Ottomans were sort of gonna get Constantinople one way or another.
01:01:26.239 --> 01:01:30.320
They had surrounded it, they had tried to invade it at numerous points.
01:01:30.480 --> 01:01:32.559
Um, it was a matter of time, right?
01:01:32.719 --> 01:01:38.880
Um, but 1516, 1517 completely changes the outlook of the empire for the rest of its history.
01:01:39.039 --> 01:01:44.239
Um, and so that's the reason that it's it's so important for uh Ottoman history.
01:01:44.320 --> 01:01:51.119
And again, and beyond that, it it makes the Ottomans relevant for the world, right?
01:01:51.280 --> 01:02:05.039
I mean, they were relevant before as well, but it really makes them um uh a kind of major player on the world stage for uh geography alone and for the fact that it touches all of these these different cultures and different regions.
01:02:05.519 --> 01:02:23.519
Um another reason that it's important, and and we sort of touched on this already, is that to rule now this hugely expanded empire, right, all the way to North Africa from the capital in Istanbul, all the way to the Hejez, right?
01:02:23.920 --> 01:02:40.079
Um you need a very sophisticated set of institutions and forms of governance, laws, uh a bureaucratic system that's going to produce people to staff this huge um administrative undertaking.
01:02:40.400 --> 01:02:52.159
Um, and so it's not a surprise that this is when we get this huge explosion of um documentary material from the Ottoman Empire, right, to rule these places.
01:02:52.400 --> 01:03:13.280
And this is why something like the Ottoman court again becomes so important to the Ottoman Empire at the time and for Ottoman historians since, um, they they become essentially kind of governing outposts in um this far-flung, um, the far-flung locations of this hugely expanded empire, right?
01:03:13.360 --> 01:03:17.519
In every town and major city, you have an Ottoman court, right?
01:03:17.920 --> 01:03:24.559
That is a place where where subjects can engage with the empire, can see the empire if you like.
01:03:25.119 --> 01:03:43.760
Um and and so, you know, if we fast forward a little bit, uh Saleim's one son, Suleiman, right, and the fact that he has one that he has one surviving son, at the very least, um, is um is is is an innovation that Saleim undertakes.
01:03:43.920 --> 01:03:54.639
Um the fact that he's known, you know, he's usually known in the in the West as Suleiman the Magnificent, but he's known as Kanuni in Turkish, so the lawgiver.
01:03:55.119 --> 01:04:04.960
One of the reasons that he is the lawgiver is precisely because he has to give laws to manage this hugely expanded empire that he inherited from his father.
01:04:05.199 --> 01:04:21.440
So, in in some ways, um, you know, all of the kind of governing innovation that we ascribe to Suleiman is an outgrowth of um what his father uh bequeathed to him um with this expanded, expanded empire.
01:04:21.679 --> 01:04:30.800
Um so anyway, there are all kinds of ways that we could talk about um the importance of 1516, 1517 um for the empire.
01:04:30.960 --> 01:04:33.199
Um, but but these are these are just a few.
01:04:33.360 --> 01:04:41.519
I mean, we can talk about uh another very important one that I discuss in the book is um the place of Islam in the empire after this period, right?
01:04:41.840 --> 01:04:48.159
This is when uh the the Ottoman Sultans come to see themselves as the keepers of the holy cities.
01:04:48.239 --> 01:04:49.679
They are the keepers of the holy cities.
01:04:49.760 --> 01:04:55.440
This is when they start to imagine themselves to be uh the caliphs of Islam, right?
01:04:55.599 --> 01:04:58.719
The preeminent Muslim leaders in the world.
01:04:59.199 --> 01:05:04.159
Um and it's again because of this expanded empire that they're able to do that.
01:05:12.480 --> 01:05:18.559
As we bring our dialogue today to a close, can you tell us about where you've devoted your attention since completing this book?
01:05:19.920 --> 01:05:45.039
Yeah, um so well, a couple a couple things, but uh you know what's probably most relevant for us is I'm I'm continuing in the vein of trying to connect um the Ottomans, but really, you know, sort of global Islam to the Atlantic world and to the Americas, uh the early modern Americas, right?
01:05:45.199 --> 01:05:50.239
So um, you know, vast early America, if you like.
01:05:50.480 --> 01:05:54.400
Um right, so that's what I've been working on.
01:05:54.480 --> 01:05:59.760
And I came to it through this, you know, what we were discussing about um the Ottomans, Ottoman, Spanish rival.
01:06:00.400 --> 01:06:18.400
And the Caribbean, I came to see that there was a whole history of the ways in which the kind of imagination and sometimes realities of Islam were present in the Americas from 1492, from the very beginning of Spanish colonialism in the Caribbean.
01:06:18.719 --> 01:06:20.719
So that's what I've been working on.
01:06:20.800 --> 01:06:44.159
I just published a book that is about a person who's often referred to as the first Muslim of New York City, who was a man called Anthony the Turk, who lived in uh New Amsterdam, so um on the island of Manhattan and on Long Island when they were Dutch colonies.
01:06:44.239 --> 01:06:46.400
So this is the first half of the 17th century.
01:06:46.480 --> 01:06:50.480
Um and he's someone who has a connection potentially to North Africa and to Spain.
01:06:50.639 --> 01:07:06.159
Um and so I, you know, I wrote a book trying to sort of tease out uh this person's life, uh, he and his family and his connections to Islam and what his story has to say about Islam in um in North America in the 17th century.
01:07:06.239 --> 01:07:11.360
Um and I'm gonna continue in in this vein of thinking about Islam and colonial America.
01:07:13.280 --> 01:07:23.920
As we end our dialogue today, I'd like to emphasize how grateful I feel for your magnanimity and generosity throughout the course of this conversation.
01:07:25.280 --> 01:07:26.079
Thank you so much.
01:07:26.159 --> 01:07:27.360
It was a lot of fun.
01:07:28.239 --> 01:07:34.639
As we end today, I'm signing off as Ari Barbalat, your host in the Dialogues and International History Podcast.
01:07:34.800 --> 01:07:38.559
Today I've been honored to engage in a conversation with Alan McHale.
01:07:39.199 --> 01:07:49.280
We have discussed his newly published book, God's Shadow, Sultan Saline, His Ottoman Empire, and the Making of the Modern World, published in New York by W.W.
01:07:49.440 --> 01:07:52.000
Norton and Company, 2020.
01:07:52.639 --> 01:07:58.000
Alan McHale is Chase Family Professor of History at Yale University.
01:07:58.559 --> 01:08:08.239
Long overlooked in the annals of world history, the Ottoman Empire served as a center of intellectual activity, geopolitical strength, and enlightened governance.
01:08:09.360 --> 01:08:32.720
During its peak in the 16th century, the Ottomans, exhibiting remarkable military superiority and exclusive control over trade routes, governed a larger expanse and a greater population than any other global power, effectively pushing Europeans out of the Mediterranean into the New World.
01:08:32.960 --> 01:08:47.600
However, despite its significant impact and pivotal role in shaping the modern world, the history of the Ottoman Empire has been misrepresented, distorted, and even suppressed in Western narratives for centuries.
01:08:47.840 --> 01:09:05.840
In response, Alan McHale offers a much-needed reinterpretation of Ottoman history, recounting the empire's global conquests through the compelling biography of Swithan Selim, who lived between 1470 and 1520.
01:09:06.800 --> 01:09:16.319
Selim, born to a concubine, and the fourth son among his father's ten offspring, was not initially destined for the throne.
01:09:17.520 --> 01:09:29.840
Through a combination of personal charm, military skill, and the support of his exceptionally talented mother, Gulbahar, Selim seized control of the empire in 1512.
01:09:30.479 --> 01:09:41.199
His relentless ambition resulted in nearly tripling the territory under Ottoman rule, establishing a governance framework that persisted into the 20th century.
01:09:41.680 --> 01:09:53.359
Concurrently, Selim, revered by his subjects as God's shadow on earth, promoted religious pluralism, inviting Jews and other minority groups into the empire.
01:09:53.680 --> 01:09:58.479
He championed education and philosophy, and he composed his own poetry.
01:09:59.119 --> 01:10:00.399
Thank you wholeheartedly.
01:10:03.039 --> 01:10:03.600
Thank you.
00:00:04.080 --> 00:00:08.080
Hello, welcome to the Dialogues and International History Podcast.
00:00:08.560 --> 00:00:10.480
I'm your host, Ari Barbalat.
00:00:10.800 --> 00:00:14.320
Today it's my honor to engage in a dialogue with Alan McHale.
00:00:15.439 --> 00:00:25.679
We will discuss his newly published book, Gods of Shadow Sultan Salim, His Ottoman Empire, and the Main of the Modern World, published in New York by W.
00:00:25.839 --> 00:00:26.000
W.
00:00:26.239 --> 00:00:28.480
Norton Company in 2020.
00:00:29.120 --> 00:00:34.079
Alan McHale is a Chase family professor of history at Yale University.
00:00:35.280 --> 00:00:46.079
Long overlooked in the Annals of World History, the Ottoman Empire served as a center of intellectual activity, geopolitical strength, and enlightened governance.
00:00:46.640 --> 00:01:06.239
During its peak in the 16th century, the Ottomans exhibiting remarkable military superiority and exclusive control over trade routes governed a large expanse and a greater population than any other global power, effectively pushing Europeans out of the Mediterranean and into the New World.
00:01:07.040 --> 00:01:21.359
However, despite its significant impact and pivotal role in shaping the modern world, the history of the Ottoman Empire has been misrepresented, distorted, and even suppressed in Western narratives for centuries.
00:01:24.719 --> 00:01:41.280
In response, Alan McHale offers a much needed reinterpretation of Ottoman history, recounting the empire's global conquests through the compelling biography of Sultan Selene I, who lived between 1470 and 1520.
00:01:41.680 --> 00:01:50.319
Selene, born to a concubine and the fourth son among his father's ten offspring, was not initially destined for the throne.
00:01:51.599 --> 00:02:05.359
Through a combination of personal charm, military skill, and the support of his exceptionally talented mother, Gul Bahar, Selim controlled the empire in 1512.
00:02:05.760 --> 00:02:18.400
His relentless ambition resulted in the tripling of the territory under Ottoman rule, establishing a government framework that persisted into the 20th century.
00:02:25.919 --> 00:02:31.199
Promoted religious pluralism, inviting Jews and other minority groups into the empire.
00:02:31.439 --> 00:02:36.080
He championed education and philosophy, and he composed his own poetry.
00:02:36.960 --> 00:02:39.680
Alan, it is an honor to be in dialogue with you today.
00:02:41.199 --> 00:02:42.159
Thanks so much, Ari.
00:02:42.400 --> 00:02:43.039
Happy to be here.
00:02:44.400 --> 00:02:46.719
To begin, can you kindly tell us about yourself?
00:02:47.439 --> 00:02:54.240
Can you say something about your personal relationship to this field of study and to this particular research project?
00:02:55.759 --> 00:02:56.319
Sure.
00:03:07.439 --> 00:03:17.840
So uh Egypt was conquered, not to get ahead of ourselves, but was conquered um by Salim um in 1517.
00:03:18.159 --> 00:03:25.360
Um initially I was interested in the nature of Ottoman rule in Egypt in the period after the Ottoman conquest.
00:03:25.520 --> 00:03:27.759
What exactly was Ottoman about Egypt?
00:03:28.080 --> 00:03:37.520
Um how can we see the relationship between Egypt and the imperial capital in Istanbul and other parts of the empire?
00:03:37.759 --> 00:03:49.039
Egypt was a key province uh for the Ottoman Empire, um, the second largest city, one of the largest populations of any province, uh, a very rich province.
00:03:49.280 --> 00:04:01.199
Um I wrote several books on um the nature of Ottoman rule in Egypt in the period between the 16th um and the early 19th centuries.
00:04:01.360 --> 00:04:07.039
Um as part of that, I was very interested in um environmental resource management.
00:04:07.199 --> 00:04:13.599
Um, and so those books are really environmental histories of this relationship of Egypt and the rest of the Ottoman Empire.
00:04:13.919 --> 00:04:24.879
Um through that work, I, as I've already kind of um previewed, I became interested in how exactly was Egypt integrated into the empire.
00:04:25.199 --> 00:04:33.839
Um and that meant a focus on this the first period, the period of the conquest, let's say, of Egypt in 1516, 1517.
00:04:34.319 --> 00:04:37.680
Um, how it was integrated into the empire.
00:04:38.000 --> 00:04:47.839
Um and from that initial kind of set of questions, uh, it became a larger set of questions about well, what did that period actually mean for the Ottoman Empire?
00:04:48.000 --> 00:04:49.839
1516, 1517.
00:04:50.160 --> 00:05:00.319
Um, uh as you already said in your intro, this is the period when the Ottoman Empire becomes the empire that we know into the 20th century.
00:05:00.480 --> 00:05:09.839
It's when it nearly triples in size, it adds um, you know, nearly double the population, it puts it in Africa, in the Indian Ocean.
00:05:10.079 --> 00:05:16.240
Um, it gives it a completely different trajectory, history, um, geography.
00:05:16.399 --> 00:05:26.240
And so I wanted to understand that moment, 1516, 1517, um, not only for the Ottoman Empire, but as a world historical moment, right?
00:05:26.959 --> 00:05:32.399
That um made the Ottomans one of the largest empires of that period.
00:05:32.879 --> 00:05:38.639
Um, and what were some of the uh knock-on effects of that conquest?
00:05:38.800 --> 00:05:47.199
How could we see it in very far from places that we might not at first suspect that there was any impact of this conquest?
00:05:47.360 --> 00:05:50.800
So, in my case, that became a story about the Caribbean.
00:05:50.959 --> 00:06:00.879
Um, others have told uh stories about um about South Asia and in this period, the Ottomans and South Asia in this period, and I touch on that a bit in the book.
00:06:01.040 --> 00:06:03.279
Um, but I'm sure we'll get into it.
00:06:03.439 --> 00:06:09.920
That was the initial kind of story of wanting to tell a global history of this moment of Ottoman imperial expansion.
00:06:11.439 --> 00:06:13.120
Who did you write this book for?
00:06:13.279 --> 00:06:16.800
Who do you have in mind as your imagined audience or audiences?
00:06:17.360 --> 00:06:20.240
Who did you have in mind as your ideal reader or readers?
00:06:22.240 --> 00:06:31.199
Yeah, I mean, there there are a few sets of of readers um in uh in in your question.
00:06:31.360 --> 00:06:44.160
Um so the f the the you know, I guess at the most the the the broadest level, I I admit I wrote this book um in such a way as to be able to reach a broad audience.
00:06:44.399 --> 00:07:04.399
Um I wanted to reach an audience of interested readers, maybe know something about the Ottoman Empire, but don't know that much, um, who would be open to an engaging book about the global impacts and global import of the Ottoman Empire.
00:07:04.639 --> 00:07:16.000
Um so it the book is in some ways an invitation to those who may not know much about the Ottoman Empire, but have enough of an interest to pick up a book on the Ottoman Empire.
00:07:16.160 --> 00:07:20.480
And I was very pleased that the book, you know, received um a large audience.
00:07:20.560 --> 00:07:34.800
I mean, it was reviewed in the York Times and The New Yorker and uh the Wall Street Journal and all kinds of places, um the Financial Times and was translated into um um eight or nine languages.
00:07:35.120 --> 00:07:38.480
So it did it did reach um many readers.
00:07:38.639 --> 00:07:40.720
So I was very I was very pleased about that.
00:07:40.879 --> 00:07:43.759
So that was the first kind of audience that I had in mind.
00:07:43.920 --> 00:07:47.600
Um, are are people who don't know a lot about the Ottoman Empire.
00:07:47.759 --> 00:08:09.519
Um, at the same time, I wanted to make an argument um to my colleagues in Ottoman history um about the how we think about the Ottoman Empire Um and how we think about um this moment again, 1516, 1517, in the history of the empire.
00:08:09.680 --> 00:08:48.080
I mean, it's it's it was always striking to me that for such an important um event in the history of the empire, this this set of conquests, um that again, all the things that we enumerated nearly tripled the size of the empire, put it in all these different locations, um, you know, made it much more of an Islamic empire, um, put it in direct contact with uh the Safavids in Iran and Indian Ocean powers and powers in North Africa for something that was so important, we actually don't have quite a good understanding of it.
00:08:48.559 --> 00:08:51.600
Um and I think that's a problem.
00:08:51.759 --> 00:09:09.679
And so part of part of the goal of the book was to um offer a story about 1516, 1517, and to sort of clue Ottoman historians into the importance of this and hopefully spur other people to uh work on on this period.
00:09:10.000 --> 00:09:15.200
Um we can maybe get into some of the reasons why I think it's been understudied.
00:09:15.440 --> 00:09:20.159
Um, but that was another audience I had in mind, were Ottoman historians.
00:09:20.320 --> 00:09:36.799
And then there were professional historians outside of Ottoman history, early modernists, um, Europeanists, Africanists, um who um you know whose work would maybe touch on Ottoman history.
00:09:36.960 --> 00:09:42.399
They knew the Ottomans were important, they were looking for ways to integrate the Ottomans into their stories.
00:09:42.720 --> 00:09:56.639
Um, so I hope that the book was able to offer them something as well, a kind of story of the Ottomans and the world that uh they could hook into through uh through uh their work.
00:09:56.720 --> 00:10:09.440
And so it was important for me to um engage deeply with historiographies outside of Ottoman history um to show them how the Ottomans mattered to uh those historiographies.
00:10:18.639 --> 00:10:25.440
If you don't mind me asking this in follow-up, what were some of those non-Ottoman historiographies that you engage with?
00:10:25.600 --> 00:10:27.679
Can you eliminate our listeners?
00:10:29.120 --> 00:10:34.000
Yeah, um, you know, very broadly speaking, early modern European history.
00:10:34.240 --> 00:10:41.519
I mean, the Ottomans were a part of um the early modern stage in um very real ways.
00:10:41.759 --> 00:10:45.039
We could argue that they were an early modern European power.
00:10:45.279 --> 00:10:47.279
Um, so that's obvious.
00:10:47.440 --> 00:11:00.720
Um, you know, more specifically, um Spain is a was a very important um the the the story of the Ottomans and the Spanish is a very important part of the book.
00:11:00.879 --> 00:11:03.039
Uh the Venetians, of course.
00:11:03.279 --> 00:11:06.320
Um, so that's the kind of Europe side.
00:11:06.720 --> 00:11:14.799
Um, the Safavids, one of the major rivals of the Ottomans um in what is today Iran and other places.
00:11:14.960 --> 00:11:17.840
Uh, so some some Safavid historiography.
00:11:18.000 --> 00:11:46.480
And then, you know, a little further afield, um, and and kind of the thing that I think is most innovative about the book is uh the engagement with historiographies of the Caribbean, um, early modern colonial histories, um, and then uh some native history as well, um in um trying to think about how the Ottoman-Spanish rivalry in the Mediterranean shaped Spanish colonization in the Caribbean.
00:11:46.559 --> 00:11:47.840
That's how I get to the Caribbean.
00:11:48.000 --> 00:11:52.240
So that was another historiography that I um that I engaged with.
00:11:52.480 --> 00:12:07.200
Um and then there's a bit in kind of Indian Ocean, uh, but it's mostly Europe, Caribbean, um, Safavid, and then you know, the Arab historiography, if we think of that as different than the Ottomans, uh, I don't know.
00:12:07.360 --> 00:12:09.679
Um but those would be the main ones.
00:12:20.639 --> 00:12:22.639
What does this book offer to beginners?
00:12:22.720 --> 00:12:27.200
How can lay persons with minimal previous knowledge grow from this study?
00:12:27.519 --> 00:12:32.639
How can those with basic or no pre-existing knowledge benefit from your research?
00:12:34.720 --> 00:12:44.879
Yeah, I mean, as I mentioned before, I think this is a book that um one can read with no prior knowledge of Ottoman history and benefit from, I hope.
00:12:45.120 --> 00:12:50.080
Um, it is not a textbook survey of Ottoman history.
00:12:50.159 --> 00:12:52.159
There are several of those out there.
00:12:52.399 --> 00:13:12.720
Um, but it is a it uses this figure of Salim uh to tell this larger story of the Ottomans and the world in a certain period, um, with implications for the later centuries as well.
00:13:13.120 --> 00:13:18.639
Um so one could read this as uh a biography, I think.
00:13:18.799 --> 00:13:26.639
Um I think about it more as kind of life and times, but if one wanted to read it just for the story of Salim, one could do that.
00:13:26.960 --> 00:13:43.200
Um can also read it as a kind of introduction to Ottoman history, because I get into many of the kind of central institutions of the Ottoman Empire, things that any student of Ottoman history um would need to understand, and things that are relevant for different periods of Ottoman history.
00:13:43.360 --> 00:14:17.200
So these are things like the um the uh structure of the Ottoman dynastic family, for example, very important, um, the legal history of the empire, um, some of its uh social institutions, uh, the structure of the Ottoman military, um, some about Ottoman economic history, so some kind of basic facets of Ottoman history that um, you know, anyone interested in, I think any part of the empire would benefit from reading.
00:14:17.519 --> 00:14:21.120
Um so so it offers all of that.
00:14:21.279 --> 00:14:32.159
The other way that I try to tell a story that would be open to people who don't know a lot about the Ottoman Empire is to hook the Ottoman story into things that are more well known.
00:14:32.399 --> 00:14:38.080
So, for example, uh 1492 is a big part of this story, right?
00:14:38.240 --> 00:14:41.440
And 1492 has several meanings.
00:14:41.679 --> 00:15:05.440
Um, it means Columbus's voyages across the Atlantic, it means uh the expulsion of the Jews from Spain, um, and it means the Reconquista, the um conquest of the Muslim uh powers uh who ruled in the Iberian Peninsula for centuries, the final conquest of those powers.
00:15:05.759 --> 00:15:12.879
Um and all of those three things had implications for the Ottomans.
00:15:13.279 --> 00:15:25.360
Um, and those are things, especially Columbus's voyages, that I think most, let's just say American readers at this point um know something about, of course, um even in the most cursory fashion.
00:15:25.519 --> 00:15:35.600
So I'm kind of piggybacking on that um understanding of 1492 to say, you know, this thing that you know about, there's actually another side to this story.
00:15:35.759 --> 00:15:40.399
There are many sides, but one of them is is the Ottoman aspects of 1492.
00:15:40.639 --> 00:15:46.399
Um, and so if you're you're interested in kind of expanding your knowledge about that, here's a story for you, right?
00:15:46.559 --> 00:16:02.159
Um similarly with something like the Protestant Reformation, I show um, you know, some of the ways that that um the Ottoman Empire was implicated in um 1517 um in uh in Europe.
00:16:02.559 --> 00:16:15.759
So I try to link into some of the um more well-known stories that I think beginners, as you called them, um might uh know about, even if they don't know much about the Ottoman Empire.
00:16:15.919 --> 00:16:35.360
More broadly, things like um, you know, the commercial revolution or the rise of capitalism, quote unquote, or um the rise of the idea of the nation state, even um, all of those are things that are happening in the early modern period and that the Ottoman Empire um you know is involved in in some way.
00:16:35.519 --> 00:16:40.960
And so if you're interested in those things, I think the book has something uh to offer.
00:16:46.559 --> 00:16:48.240
What does your book's title mean?
00:16:48.320 --> 00:16:49.600
Can you explain it?
00:16:50.799 --> 00:16:59.600
Yeah, so um uh God's Shadow, um God Shadow on Earth is an is an Ottoman title for the Sultan.
00:17:00.399 --> 00:17:06.960
Um and um there are many titles for Sultans, but that was one of them.
00:17:07.119 --> 00:17:13.119
Um, you know, its meaning is of course um perhaps obvious, right?
00:17:13.279 --> 00:17:34.640
That the the Ottoman Sultan is meant to be a sort of representative of of God on earth, or uh even divinely endowed, or you know, given some um kind of um holy uh license to uh rule on earth.
00:17:34.880 --> 00:17:52.880
Um I liked the idea of shadow as well, um, in that as we've been discussing, one of the goals of the book is to show Ottoman influence far beyond um what we might think.
00:17:53.039 --> 00:17:56.720
And so the notion of a shadow helps me to do that.
00:17:57.039 --> 00:18:02.720
Um and you know, also the kind of aspects of it being, you know, in the dark.
00:18:02.960 --> 00:18:11.279
Um, but you know, there there to be seen if one looks correctly was also something that I wanted to play with.
00:18:11.359 --> 00:18:17.440
Um, so for all those reasons, I thought it was um, you know, an evocative title.
00:18:21.920 --> 00:18:26.079
What was your guiding principle in conducting this research?
00:18:27.759 --> 00:18:33.119
Yeah, um, this guess that's gets us um to some of the things we've discussed already.
00:18:33.279 --> 00:18:41.039
I mean, as I've said, um I'm telling a story on a very large canvas.
00:18:41.119 --> 00:18:45.440
And so that meant reading very widely in very different historiographies.
00:18:45.599 --> 00:18:56.000
In terms of the kind of research innovation of this book, it is in bringing different historiographies together that are usually kept separate.
00:18:56.400 --> 00:19:08.319
So Caribbean, Spanish colonial, um, Safavid, Ottoman, Venetian, um, North African.
00:19:08.720 --> 00:19:18.240
Um, so bringing all of that work together um in a way that makes sense, in a way that works.
00:19:18.480 --> 00:19:23.200
Um, you know, for Ottoman historians, this is a little bit early.
00:19:23.279 --> 00:19:30.880
The period of Salim's rule is a little bit early for uh the archival heft that Ottoman history is known for.
00:19:31.119 --> 00:19:35.119
Um we have some court records, but not an enormous number.
00:19:35.359 --> 00:19:46.400
We have many orders and um decrees and things, um, but we don't have the kind of social history, economic history material that makes Ottoman history so rich.
00:19:46.640 --> 00:19:49.839
We have some, but not what we will have in in the later period.
00:19:50.000 --> 00:20:10.960
One of the arguments of the book, in fact, is it's precisely because of uh the conquest and the need to create um institutions of governance over this huge expansive empire, uh, that we have the development of some of these institutions that will produce the documents that we as historians use today.
00:20:11.200 --> 00:20:29.680
So the guiding principle in my research was to um make the Ottoman Empire as accessible as possible to those outside of Ottoman history by using um sources that are accessible to most people that are not necessarily in Ottoman Turkish.
00:20:29.839 --> 00:20:34.400
In fact, I try to use as many sources as possible that were not in Ottoman Turkish.
00:20:34.640 --> 00:20:47.839
Um, but it's it's really in bringing together um all of this historiography to be able to tell this specific story about the Ottomans um at the turn of the 16th century.
00:20:48.640 --> 00:21:02.000
In light of what you've just shared, if you don't mind me asking, what scholarly works have had the greatest impact on your thinking in regard to Ottoman history in general and Sultan Salim in particular?
00:21:02.799 --> 00:21:14.000
Which authors and which works challenged you most and have had the greatest uh impact on the ways that you yourself narrate this history?
00:21:15.519 --> 00:21:17.920
Yeah, uh that's a great question.
00:21:18.160 --> 00:21:25.279
So um, as I said, there's been some work done on Salim.
00:21:25.599 --> 00:21:27.599
Um but to start there.
00:21:27.920 --> 00:21:41.359
So, you know, one of my teachers, um, Leslie Pierce, um who's who's really a scholar of this of the Soleimonic period, but Soleiman is the son of Saleem, so you know, touches on on Saleem.
00:21:41.519 --> 00:21:45.839
Um her work is an example that I had before me.
00:21:46.079 --> 00:21:59.759
She wrote a um book on Hudem or Roxalana, as she's uh known in in uh in the West, um, who was the concubine, then wife.
00:22:00.160 --> 00:22:02.400
Of Soleimon and has a very interesting story.
00:22:02.480 --> 00:22:12.559
And so she she wanted to write, and she did write a um an accessible um book on uh Roxellana.
00:22:12.799 --> 00:22:16.640
So that was a kind of example that I had in my head.
00:22:16.799 --> 00:22:20.799
Um and also her, you know, her her her earlier work as well.
00:22:21.039 --> 00:22:31.839
Um, she has a book called Morality Tales that is very helpful in thinking about how territories become a part of the Ottoman Empire at the initial stage.
00:22:32.000 --> 00:22:38.720
So in as I said, in thinking about how the Arab world, let's call it, becomes a part of the Ottoman Empire.
00:22:38.880 --> 00:22:43.519
Her book called Morality Tales was was useful for me in thinking about an earlier example.
00:22:43.680 --> 00:22:52.720
Um, actually, not an earlier example, a little bit later example in the 1540s of a territory becoming a part of the Ottoman Empire.
00:22:53.039 --> 00:22:54.960
Uh, so that's one person.
00:22:55.200 --> 00:23:10.880
Um, you know, uh in terms of you know, examples I had in my head, people like David Abulafia, who's a historian of the Mediterranean, um, and writes um, he's a story, historian of many things, but one of them is the Mediterranean.
00:23:11.119 --> 00:23:28.559
But his ability to link the Mediterranean to the Atlantic world is something that was very important for me and that um I um I I you know the the is something that I wanted to do in my own in my own work.
00:23:28.720 --> 00:23:35.920
Um so that that was an example of of of um you know a book that I I had in mind in writing this.
00:23:36.319 --> 00:23:47.200
Um you know, there there are people who have written kind of more specific um monographic accounts that were very helpful in thinking about um this work.
00:23:47.440 --> 00:24:07.119
So um a book that comes to mind is um um uh Caroline Cook has a book called Uh Forbidden Passages about uh the Inquisition Um and Moriscos and Muslims in um colonial Spanish America.
00:24:07.200 --> 00:24:17.440
So that book was very helpful in again, kind of trying to link some old world things to uh to um uh to the new world.
00:24:17.759 --> 00:24:20.799
Um yeah, so those are some examples of of things.
00:24:20.880 --> 00:24:28.240
And then they were more specific on on different periods that I was uh um work that I that I uh relied upon.
00:24:30.400 --> 00:24:36.240
Can you comment on Selim's tenure as governor of Trabzon?
00:24:39.039 --> 00:24:39.519
Sure.
00:24:39.759 --> 00:24:47.519
Uh yeah, that's a very important part of um his uh biography, and in some ways, maybe the most important, right?
00:24:47.599 --> 00:24:52.160
Uh he spends more time there than um than anywhere else.
00:24:52.400 --> 00:24:59.039
Um and he goes there as a as a essentially a teenager um with his mother.
00:24:59.440 --> 00:25:05.680
Now we should stop there and just talk a little bit about why that is and how that worked.
00:25:06.000 --> 00:25:13.759
So there's what Leslie Pierce, the historian that I mentioned already, has described as one mother, one son.
00:25:13.839 --> 00:25:16.799
And this is has to do with Ottoman dynastic politics.
00:25:17.039 --> 00:25:26.880
So almost always Ottoman sultans created heirs um from their concubines, not from their legal wives.
00:25:26.960 --> 00:25:30.480
So they had both wives and concubines in the Ottoman harem.
00:25:31.200 --> 00:25:38.960
Um, and um for obvious reasons, this is a way to produce as many children as possible very quickly.
00:25:39.200 --> 00:25:52.799
Um and uh once a woman in the harem bore a son, that son theoretically uh could become the next Ottoman Sultan, right?
00:25:52.960 --> 00:25:54.559
Was an Ottoman prince.
00:25:54.799 --> 00:26:02.319
Um and even though his mother is an enslaved woman, uh he is born free and is born a royal.
00:26:03.039 --> 00:26:20.799
Once a concubine bore a son, usually, usually, um the sultan um uh ceased um sexual relations with that woman, and her fate and that of her son are tied to one another.
00:26:21.920 --> 00:26:32.240
And she has an interest in the kind of jockeying for power that always occurred in Ottoman succession uh struggles because being the mother of the Sultan was a very powerful position.
00:26:32.400 --> 00:26:42.079
And so she had an interest in her one son, uh, the son that um she she created with the Sultan to win, to be the next Sultan.
00:26:42.240 --> 00:26:51.039
So usually what happened was mothers and sons, as kind of duos, as tag teams, would be assigned to positions around the empire to sort of prove themselves, right?
00:26:51.200 --> 00:26:57.440
Prove themselves as as um governors, as um military folks, etc.
00:26:57.839 --> 00:26:59.440
Really the sons to prove themselves.
00:26:59.599 --> 00:27:10.240
But because the sons were often teenagers or even younger, the mothers play a huge role in their lives and governance in these places and kind of um, you know, calling the shots.
00:27:10.400 --> 00:27:16.400
And so this was the case with um Salim and his mother Gulbahar as well, uh, when they're in Trapzon.
00:27:16.720 --> 00:27:20.880
So Gulbihar is perhaps the most powerful person in Trapzon in this period.
00:27:20.960 --> 00:27:23.200
Um, she endows institutions.
00:27:23.839 --> 00:27:33.279
Um, there's a soup kitchen that is still uh and a mosque complex that is still um uh still bears her name in Trabzon.
00:27:34.000 --> 00:27:45.680
Um she uh is there presiding over the kind of governing council of the city, um with Salim, of course, but um but she's there especially when he's when he's young.
00:27:46.160 --> 00:27:49.680
Um but Trabzon is on the very edge of the empire, right?
00:27:49.759 --> 00:27:52.880
It's it's in some ways the furthest place you could get from Istanbul.
00:27:53.039 --> 00:27:59.759
And so the fact that he's assigned there, that he and Gubbahar are assigned there, is also a sign that they were not favored.
00:28:00.000 --> 00:28:03.599
Salim was not favored to become the next sultan, right?
00:28:04.240 --> 00:28:11.359
Uh he was the the the third of his surviving um uh half-brothers, right?
00:28:11.519 --> 00:28:13.920
They all have different mothers with the same father.
00:28:14.079 --> 00:28:16.400
Um, and it's kind of third in line, right?
00:28:16.559 --> 00:28:22.640
His eldest son, his eldest sorry, half-brother is the one who is favored to take over uh from their father.
00:28:22.880 --> 00:28:29.119
But it's really in Trabzon that um Selim uses that disadvantage and turns it into an advantage for himself.
00:28:29.279 --> 00:28:40.160
It's there that he cuts his teeth on governance, on running a place, on managing people, um, on being the kind of uh you know authority in charge.
00:28:40.480 --> 00:29:05.599
It's there also that he makes a very important um kind of argument to the military elite of the empire, saying things like the Janissaries, the famed elite uh military of the empire, you know, has um um not, has become too comfortable, is no longer the kind of elite fighting force they used to be.
00:29:05.920 --> 00:29:14.240
They need to engage in military action more, um, and that I'm gonna be a champion of this in a way that my father wasn't.
00:29:14.480 --> 00:29:31.440
So he leads from Trabzon um these military expeditions into Georgia, right, to sort of prove his military medal and to prove to the Ottoman military elite that they should back him in the struggle to become the next sultan.
00:29:31.759 --> 00:29:43.680
So Trabzon is a very important uh posting for um uh Salim and kind of you know, jumping off point for the succession battle with his half-brothers.
00:29:43.839 --> 00:29:46.880
It's there that he also learns about the Safavids, right?
00:29:46.960 --> 00:30:00.400
It's kind of face to face with um not exactly the Safavids in this period, but those who will become the Safavids, um, and understands that um you know the border of the Ottoman Empire needs to be defended.
00:30:00.799 --> 00:30:18.240
Um so um, you know, Trabzon and the posting there with his mother, um, it's there where he has Suleiman, his son, who becomes the next Sultan, and it's there, it's from there that he launches his kind of bid uh to become the next sultan.
00:30:19.759 --> 00:30:23.440
What was the place of the Ottoman Empire in world history?
00:30:24.160 --> 00:30:27.359
Yeah, I mean, you know, as we've been saying, I think large.
00:30:27.759 --> 00:30:34.160
Um and um it's something that I hope my book can contribute to people thinking about.
00:30:34.319 --> 00:30:45.759
I mean, the Ottoman Empire was the longest lasting empire in um Islamic history, 600 years, you know, roughly from 1300 into World War I.
00:30:46.480 --> 00:30:53.839
Um, one of the longest lasting empires in world history of any empire, um, on three continents.
00:30:54.400 --> 00:31:08.000
Um, if we think about it was a late medieval state, it was an early modern state, it was a 19th-century reforming state, it was a 20th century uh state.
00:31:08.319 --> 00:31:12.240
Um, it was very different in different places, right?
00:31:12.559 --> 00:31:16.720
Um, it ruled over 30 modern-day countries.
00:31:17.119 --> 00:31:24.240
Um polity um on the world stage and in world history.
00:31:24.400 --> 00:31:34.160
And I think we're we've only begun to scratch the surface of um why it's um so important to world history.
00:31:34.240 --> 00:32:12.240
But you know, as I try to argue in the book, if if one is interested in essentially anywhere in the world, that's that's too large a statement, but um in many places in the world, um let's say Europe, North Africa, um parts of sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East, of course, uh the Caucasus, Central Asia, uh, the Indian Ocean world, um, parts of Southeast Asia, um, the Caribbean, um, and early America, one should be interested in Ottoman history.
00:32:12.480 --> 00:32:17.680
Ottoman history has something to say to all of those places and all of those historiographies.
00:32:17.920 --> 00:32:30.319
Um, in part, it's simply because of its size and its longevity, but it's also in part because of its uh you know location at the kind of strategic crossroads of the old world.
00:32:30.960 --> 00:32:48.160
Um and you know, this moment, again, the the reign of Salim is the moment in which it becomes uh the largest empire, um, the the the the largest it will it will um it will be for the rest of its history.
00:32:48.400 --> 00:33:12.000
It adds some territory under Suleiman and things, but in terms of you know what one of the largest single expansion of the empire, it is in this period, and this is roughly the shape that the empire will have um from 1517 into World War uh one, adding and subtracting some territory at the edges, but basically, this is the empire for the next uh for the next 400 years.
00:33:12.160 --> 00:33:21.200
Um, and so again, this period is is is very important for understanding um the place of the Ottoman Empire in world history.
00:33:23.039 --> 00:33:27.359
In light of what you've just shared, don't want to be asking a follow-up question.
00:33:27.680 --> 00:33:33.920
In your scholarly opinion, what factors contributed to the longevity of the Ottoman Empire?
00:33:34.880 --> 00:33:39.599
Yeah, I mean, Ottoman historians love to debate that.
00:33:39.920 --> 00:34:00.160
Um you know, there is a there is a I don't want to say consensus, but there is a scholarly sense, if I had to kind of summarize very broadly, um, that it is in some ways the light touch of the Ottoman Empire that it allows it to um rule in certain places for so long.
00:34:00.640 --> 00:34:04.160
So, you know, by way of example, how did this this play out on the ground?
00:34:04.319 --> 00:34:24.320
So in you know, wherever the Ottomans conquered it, let's just stick with 1516, 1517 in the Arab world, um they would create various institutions, something like the Ottoman court, they would collect taxes, um, and they would they would conscript men for war.
00:34:25.039 --> 00:34:28.400
So in the broadest brush strokes, right?
00:34:28.559 --> 00:34:53.199
So as long as um people were paying taxes and tax revenue was flowing to the empire, in terms of the daily governance in in these areas and in others, the empire was was fine to let local elites, older institutions, um, important families, sometimes even previous governing powers, uh, to uh rule in those areas, right?
00:34:53.280 --> 00:34:55.599
To continue to kind of manage those places.
00:34:55.760 --> 00:35:02.239
The idea being that um, you know, if it ain't broke, don't fix it a little bit, right?
00:35:02.400 --> 00:35:12.159
And as long as you're paying taxes and are not rebelling and give some amount of of uh allegiance to the Ottoman Empire, that we're fine for you to manage your affairs, right?
00:35:12.400 --> 00:35:18.320
This also means that, for example, in places like the court, uh, the language of the court is the local language.
00:35:18.480 --> 00:35:21.199
So the court records from Damascus are in Arabic.
00:35:21.360 --> 00:35:29.519
Um, you know, the court records from uh Bosnian, from Bosnia are in um are in Bosnian, right?
00:35:29.599 --> 00:35:32.079
In in in in Bosnian server Croatian.
00:35:32.239 --> 00:35:42.239
So um in whatever place the the the um the empire was ruling, it allowed um the kind of uh local elites to to control itself.
00:35:42.480 --> 00:35:47.679
So um, you know, that lasted and worked fine for hundreds of years.
00:35:47.920 --> 00:36:16.159
In the 19th century, all of that begins to change because of idea, growing ideas of nationalism, um uh some colonial powers using, you know, interested in um gaining footholds in the Middle East and wanting to break up the Ottoman Empire and so fomenting kind of local elite into thinking that, hey, why should you pay allegiance and taxes to the Ottoman Empire when you could, you know, be your own sort of local rulers?
00:36:16.480 --> 00:36:18.880
So um, you know, all of that will crack.
00:36:19.119 --> 00:36:26.639
But um it's the kind of light imperial touch uh of the Ottoman Empire um that allows it to maintain.
00:36:26.800 --> 00:36:29.039
Now, we can overstate that.
00:36:29.599 --> 00:36:31.679
Um, and Ottoman historians have.
00:36:31.840 --> 00:36:44.159
Um people talk about you know, a kind of flexible empire or a durable empire or a tolerant empire and all of those things um to a degree, but we can over we can overstate that.
00:36:44.239 --> 00:36:47.199
So you see that in terms of religious pluralism, right?
00:36:47.360 --> 00:37:01.840
So the Ottoman Empire is often considered to be a place in which non-Muslims um were um given some amount of autonomy, were able to use their own communal and religious laws, um, etc.
00:37:02.159 --> 00:37:04.400
Unlike, say, Spain, right?
00:37:04.719 --> 00:37:11.440
Or uh other parts of Europe where it was much more difficult to be uh a non-Christian in that case.
00:37:11.679 --> 00:37:30.800
Um and so, yes, to a certain degree, that's true about the Ottoman Empire, and I discussed some of that in my book, but we also have moments of anti-Christian and anti-Jewish violence um in the early modern period, you know, never mind at the end of the empire, where we have you know hugely catastrophic um versions of that violence.
00:37:31.280 --> 00:37:40.480
Um Salim himself goes after uh the the Shiite community of Anatolia um on one of his campaigns.
00:37:40.639 --> 00:37:51.280
Um, so you know, um longevity, yes, tolerance maybe, you know, flexibility maybe, um, but only to a point.
00:37:53.519 --> 00:37:59.840
Why has the Ottoman Empire here not been considered a bigger part of global history?
00:38:02.159 --> 00:38:09.119
Yeah, um that is a good question and a somewhat difficult question to answer.
00:38:09.360 --> 00:38:11.280
I'll try to answer it in a couple ways.
00:38:11.440 --> 00:38:21.280
I mean, what if we think about uh just to put it crudely, you know, non-Ottoman historians, people looking um at the Ottoman uh at the Ottoman Empire from the outside.
00:38:22.239 --> 00:38:42.480
Um you know, in in the 19th century, um, which is the kind of beginning of uh professional history in the way that we inhabit it today, um, written mostly by uh European historians.
00:38:42.559 --> 00:38:46.320
Uh you know, the Ottoman Empire is losing at that point, okay?
00:38:46.639 --> 00:38:48.719
Just to put it again very crudely.
00:38:48.960 --> 00:38:58.079
Um, and so one of the things that these historians are trying to explain is why is it that this once powerful empire seems to be on the back foot?
00:38:58.400 --> 00:39:02.159
Um so there's already a sense of Ottoman weakness, right?
00:39:02.239 --> 00:39:05.360
The Sickman of Europe uh narrative.
00:39:05.840 --> 00:39:17.039
And so at the beginning of a kind of writing of global history, if you want to call it that, or let's just call it professional history, maybe, um, the Ottomans are already in a kind of lesser role.
00:39:17.519 --> 00:39:33.280
Um there's also a sense that I think we have to admit that maybe beginning even in the 19th century, but certainly today and for the past, I would say, I don't know, century, maybe half century.
00:39:33.440 --> 00:39:47.920
Um, it's hard for most to understand Islam as a global force, as a, again, to put it crudely, positive force in world history.
00:39:48.159 --> 00:39:48.480
Okay.
00:39:49.280 --> 00:39:56.320
Islam as enemy, as other, as reason for war, as all of that, fine.
00:39:56.559 --> 00:40:13.760
But Islam as civilizational power, as uh, you know, place of letters, as um influencing other places, as a partner in geopolitics, um, as a place of wealth, of power.
00:40:14.159 --> 00:40:18.480
Um, you know, it's harder for most people to grasp.
00:40:18.559 --> 00:40:35.760
And so I think um, you know, trying to tell a story of the Ottomans as a as a world power is it it takes it takes too many steps to get there for most people, even professional historians.
00:40:36.880 --> 00:40:47.119
Um, so a kind of knee-jerk reaction against Islam as world historical uh uh important force is is a piece of this.
00:40:47.440 --> 00:40:53.199
Now I think Ottoman historians, I don't want to say are also to blame here.
00:40:53.280 --> 00:41:13.920
Uh it's not necessarily blame, but um just to to uh you know point out some facts, um you know, Ottoman history uh in the West, in America, let's say, since we're um since we're we're we're we're talking about that in large part, um, is a relatively new discipline.
00:41:14.400 --> 00:41:21.440
We might date it to the 70s, um maybe a little bit earlier in the United States, but but really the 70s.
00:41:21.679 --> 00:41:28.960
So um that means we've only had a few generations really of people being trained in Ottoman history in the United States.
00:41:29.280 --> 00:41:31.119
Um that's fine.
00:41:31.199 --> 00:41:35.360
Uh there's no reason Americans have to be the ones to tell Ottoman history.
00:41:35.519 --> 00:41:43.440
Um, but um that has meant that um it's been shaped in a certain kind of way because it's a small amount of time.
00:41:43.599 --> 00:41:52.320
Uh highly empirical, um, sometimes obscurantist in the way that it's been told.
00:41:52.480 --> 00:42:03.360
Um, because of the sources, people are are very, very wrapped up in their sources and are not able to tell bigger stories outside of those sources.
00:42:03.599 --> 00:42:19.360
Um history is one of the places where Orientalism is alive and well, of people wanting to um explain complex social political phenomena through the reading of, you know, sometimes even a single text.
00:42:19.760 --> 00:42:31.119
Um, so that has made Ottoman history um, you know, um difficult for people to read.
00:42:31.599 --> 00:42:33.119
Let's just put it that way.
00:42:33.360 --> 00:42:45.519
Um, and um Ottoman histories, Ottoman historians are in in large measure talking to themselves, um, and a very small number of people uh even within that.
00:42:45.920 --> 00:42:58.800
Um and so you know, we've done ourselves a disservice in showing other historians and then a kind of educated public uh why they should care about Ottoman history.
00:42:58.960 --> 00:43:03.039
Now, again, there are plenty of people who are doing precisely what I just said.
00:43:03.199 --> 00:43:07.119
Uh, I don't want to I don't want to uh draw too stark a picture here.
00:43:07.360 --> 00:43:15.119
Um, but and there are plenty, there are plenty of of Ottoman historians who have reached far beyond the field and who are read widely and all of that.
00:43:15.280 --> 00:43:32.159
Um, but you know, painting in very broad brushstrokes and as part of the reason why there are you know it reasons that are internal to the field, and then I think reasons that have to do with geopolitics and a kind of Islamophobia that um are the reasons why um Ottoman history is not more well known.
00:43:33.519 --> 00:43:44.400
In light of what you've just shared, in your scholarly opinion, what is the legacy of the Ottoman Empire in the history of colonialism and the history of imperialism?
00:43:44.880 --> 00:43:48.960
What is the spectrum of opinion and historiography regarding this?
00:43:51.599 --> 00:43:52.960
Um yeah.
00:43:54.320 --> 00:43:58.000
Uh that's a good question.
00:43:58.079 --> 00:44:02.800
So I mean in in in the Post-Ottoman world, let's say.
00:44:02.880 --> 00:44:11.039
So in those places that used to be ruled by the Ottoman Empire but um ceased being so, something of the Arab world and the Balkans.
00:44:11.199 --> 00:44:19.119
Um, again, it's different from place to place, but in pretty broad brush strokes, there is a story of you know, the Ottoman yoke, right?
00:44:19.280 --> 00:44:30.159
The Ottomans as foreign colonial domination in these regions that didn't allow the Syrian, Egyptian, Bulgarian, etc.
00:44:30.480 --> 00:44:32.719
nation to thrive, right?
00:44:32.880 --> 00:44:34.400
That suppressed them.
00:44:34.719 --> 00:44:45.840
Um, you know, these are these are uh post-imperial nationalisms that are um painting Ottoman history as one of you know the British in India, essentially.
00:44:45.920 --> 00:44:47.760
That's that's what they're trying to say.
00:44:48.000 --> 00:44:54.000
There's been a whole generation, um, I don't say a whole generation, but you know, there's been a good 20 years of pushback against that.
00:44:54.239 --> 00:45:02.480
My own work is a part of that, of trying to show how 300 years of Ottoman rule in a place like Egypt, you know, had an impact.
00:45:02.639 --> 00:45:04.480
And not all of it was terrible.
00:45:04.639 --> 00:45:08.239
Um, and it's worth examining in uh in real ways.
00:45:08.639 --> 00:45:15.440
So that's uh that's that's one of the legacies in terms of um colonial and imperial history.
00:45:15.679 --> 00:45:25.920
At the same time, you know, Ottoman historians, going back to something we were discussing earlier, like to point out that you know the Ottomans were a quote unquote light imperial power.
00:45:26.000 --> 00:45:36.320
They were not the French in Algeria, they were not trying to turn Algerians into French or trying to inculcate French culture into the natives, quote unquote, right?
00:45:36.400 --> 00:45:45.039
The Ottomans were never trying to um make everyone in Bulgaria or the Arab world speak Ottoman Turkish, right?
00:45:45.199 --> 00:45:48.559
Um, it wasn't that form of colonialism.
00:45:48.800 --> 00:45:56.800
So um it's you know, so that is not meant as an excuse, quote unquote, for Ottoman imperialism.
00:45:56.880 --> 00:46:01.679
Uh, but but some historians have talked about it in that way, and I think that's something that we need to be careful of.
00:46:01.840 --> 00:46:12.719
I mean, there are sort of more obvious examples of Ottoman colonialism later in the empire, um, at the end of the 19th century, places like Yemen, for example.
00:46:12.960 --> 00:46:20.719
Um, and Ottoman historians debate whether or not we can speak about Ottoman colonialism in uh at the end of the 19th century.
00:46:21.199 --> 00:46:29.920
Um, but yes, um, and and you know, there is a comparative empire mode in which the Ottomans are often treated.
00:46:30.159 --> 00:46:34.800
Uh, this is sometimes the early modern Muslim empires, the Ottomans the Sahov is the Mughals.
00:46:35.119 --> 00:46:44.719
Uh, sometimes it's with other um European empires, let's call them, the Romanovs or the Habsburgs or something like that.
00:46:44.880 --> 00:46:49.920
Um, and so there are many ways in which one can do this kind of comparative imperial work with other empires.
00:46:50.079 --> 00:46:57.119
And that's one of the ways that the Ottomans have been done comparatively and also in the realm of um of imperial history.
00:46:57.440 --> 00:47:08.719
Um yeah, I I I think in in some ways, maybe that moment has passed, the kind of comparative imperial histories, but um, you know, we'll see.
00:47:11.440 --> 00:47:16.880
Can you comment on the interconnections between the Ottoman Empire and the Atlantic world?
00:47:17.199 --> 00:47:20.960
And the interconnections between the Ottoman Empire and the Americas.
00:47:22.000 --> 00:47:22.639
Yeah.
00:47:23.119 --> 00:47:30.880
So this is something that you know I'm very interested in doing in the book, In God Shadow, and um and in some of my um current work.
00:47:32.000 --> 00:47:42.079
And um this is not something that um Ottoman historians have tended to do, um, you know, with with a couple caveats.
00:47:42.480 --> 00:47:55.599
So, you know, there's a very famous um uh translation of um European sources about the quote-unquote New Worlds into Ottoman Turkish.
00:47:55.760 --> 00:47:59.440
It's a compilation of um Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish sources.
00:47:59.679 --> 00:48:04.800
Um that was read in the Ottoman Empire in elite circles.
00:48:05.119 --> 00:48:10.079
So um, so there the the there is some not that's a 16th century text.
00:48:10.159 --> 00:48:14.480
So there's some knowledge um and interest even in the New World.
00:48:14.559 --> 00:48:19.679
So that's an example of Ottoman, you know, Ottoman connections with the Atlantic and with the Americas.
00:48:20.079 --> 00:48:30.320
At the very end of the empire, of course, we have a lot of immigration from the Ottoman Empire to the Americas, both to places like Brazil, but also to North America.
00:48:30.400 --> 00:48:31.920
Uh, but that's very late, right?
00:48:32.000 --> 00:48:35.119
Like 1870s, 1880s, and going forward.
00:48:35.599 --> 00:48:48.639
Um apart from that, there aren't too many examples of connections between the Ottomans and the Atlantic and um and andor the Americas.
00:48:48.800 --> 00:48:54.000
In part that's because the Ottomans never had any territory on the Atlantic, right?
00:48:54.239 --> 00:49:03.039
As I discuss in the book, Salim, it seems, had some designs on conquering Morocco, as did other Ottoman sultans, but never actually did, right?
00:49:03.280 --> 00:49:05.519
Morocco is never made a part of the Ottoman Empire.
00:49:05.679 --> 00:49:09.199
And that might have changed, you know, the fortunes of the Ottoman Empire.
00:49:09.360 --> 00:49:12.320
It would have given it, you know, a clearer Atlantic history.
00:49:12.559 --> 00:49:17.280
Nevertheless, saying all of that, in the book, I am interested in this.
00:49:17.440 --> 00:49:25.039
Um, and the way that it plays out is through the Ottoman-Spanish rivalry in the Mediterranean.
00:49:25.119 --> 00:49:59.119
So I spent a lot of time in the book discussing how someone like Columbus, but that generation of um Europeans, um, many of whom, well, some of whom went to the Americas, um, were raised in a world in which the Ottoman Empire was a powerful force in the Mediterranean, was pushing west um in North Africa, was controlling trade routes um to the east, was holding um uh the Holy Land, was holding Jerusalem, right?
00:49:59.199 --> 00:50:01.280
The Mamluks and then the Ottomans.
00:50:01.440 --> 00:50:17.679
Um, a world in which Islam was both in the ascendancy in the Mediterranean and um and you know, uh this this political, theological, economic threat to European Christendom.
00:50:18.159 --> 00:50:34.719
Um and how for people like Ferdinand and Isabella, um something like the Reconquista and eventually Columbus's voyages is very much seen as part of their kind of quote-unquote global war with Islam.
00:50:34.960 --> 00:50:38.639
Too strong a statement, but um they speak in those terms, right?
00:50:38.719 --> 00:50:46.159
That the Reconquista is the beginning of the end for Islam uh in the world and and the ascendancy of Catholicism for them.
00:50:46.480 --> 00:51:04.719
So um so the so the the Spanish, especially, right, because of the presence of uh Muslims in Spain and Muslim empires in Spain, Muslim polities, um are very much in this mode of kind of um Christendom and Islam.
00:51:05.199 --> 00:51:25.039
Now, this means that um for people like Columbus, Cortes, and other of the conquistadors, um they often fought against Muslims around the Mediterranean, someone like Cortes in North Africa um uh or in Iberia, right, itself.
00:51:25.679 --> 00:51:33.360
Um, and that much of their kind of warring lives uh was against Muslims as enemies, right?
00:51:33.519 --> 00:51:36.800
Muslims as the great other of Christendom.
00:51:37.280 --> 00:51:41.840
Now, when they cross the Atlantic, they take that memory with them, right?
00:51:41.920 --> 00:51:44.960
They take that kind of mental landscape with them.
00:51:45.280 --> 00:51:50.320
And so this helps us to explain, I think, some very odd things.
00:51:50.719 --> 00:52:02.800
Um, Columbus, for example, likens the scarves of Taino women to what he calls Moorish sashes, that is, the clothing of Muslim women in Spain.
00:52:03.119 --> 00:52:07.360
Cortes says that he sees mosques in what is today Mexico, right?
00:52:07.440 --> 00:52:09.440
He calls Montezuma a sultan.
00:52:09.920 --> 00:52:26.159
They very much use the language of Islam in the Caribbean to try to understand the vast difference that they see before them in the Caribbean amongst the indigenous peoples of these territories.
00:52:26.719 --> 00:52:39.360
Um, and so I think we need to understand that as a kind of remnant, as an effect of the ascendancy of the Ottomans and other Muslim powers in the Mediterranean um in this period.
00:52:39.519 --> 00:52:58.880
And so that's that's how I um you know work to connect the Atlantic world and the Americas to uh the Ottomans and other Muslim powers around the Mediterranean to show how impactful um that um confrontation was around the Mediterranean.
00:52:59.039 --> 00:53:05.599
Um, so much so that you can see its kind of echoes in the Mediterranean in the uh Caribbean, right?
00:53:05.760 --> 00:53:24.639
That um that uh the Taino, uh, that um uh the Aztec and others are are thought to be somehow connected to Islam in this kind of fantastical, you know, completely incorrect, ahistorical way, um, but in a way that we need to explain.
00:53:24.800 --> 00:53:35.599
Um and I think that the way to explain that is um through understanding just how powerful the Ottomans and other Muslims were um around the Mediterranean.
00:53:35.760 --> 00:53:38.320
Now, not everything is confrontation around the Mediterranean.
00:53:38.400 --> 00:53:41.840
I I just want to be clear here between Islam and Christendom, right?
00:53:42.000 --> 00:53:56.639
We have many examples of you know quite copacetic relationships, of collaboration, um, of trade, of um using each other's institutions, uh technological innovation, all that kind of thing.
00:53:56.880 --> 00:54:05.119
Um but uh you know, for telling my story, I I'm much more interested in um in some of the other effects.
00:54:06.239 --> 00:54:20.639
In light of what you've just shared, just as a follow-up question, in your scholarly opinion, how helpful or unhelpful is counterfactual reasoning in thinking about the history of the Ottoman Empire?
00:54:21.199 --> 00:54:30.239
Are there any counterfactual scenarios whereby if X happened rather than Y, or if A did not occur but B did?
00:54:31.519 --> 00:54:35.920
Aspects of the history of the Ottoman Empire may have turned out differently.
00:54:36.880 --> 00:54:52.480
Do you consider counterfactual history to be problematic and thinking about the Ottoman Empire or do you find it to lead to fruitful conjectures about hypothetical possibilities?
00:54:54.000 --> 00:54:57.840
Yeah, I don't find counterfactual history to be helpful.
00:54:58.480 --> 00:55:04.639
Um I I don't think it's you know, as a kind of intellectual exercise, maybe, but to what end, right?
00:55:04.800 --> 00:55:09.360
I mean, to say that what if the Ottomans had captured Morocco?
00:55:09.840 --> 00:55:11.440
What would have happened?
00:55:11.840 --> 00:55:18.480
I mean, okay, sure, but you know, as a historian, I'm interested in what happened, not what didn't happen.
00:55:18.800 --> 00:55:27.199
Um so um, you know, in that in that way, I don't find uh counterfactual history to be that helpful.
00:55:31.519 --> 00:55:36.239
What transpired in the years 1516 and 1517?
00:55:37.199 --> 00:55:44.000
Why were 15, 16, and 1517 so important for Ottoman history?
00:55:45.039 --> 00:55:56.000
Yeah, so um, you know, as as we've said already, this is this is the period in which um Salim conquers you know what we conventionally think of as the Middle East.
00:55:56.079 --> 00:55:58.639
So let's spend a little time talking about that.
00:55:58.880 --> 00:56:08.000
Um, Salim is only on the throne for eight years, 18 uh sorry, 1512 um to uh 1520.
00:56:09.039 --> 00:56:12.320
Um he dies at the age of 50, you know, fairly young.
00:56:12.480 --> 00:56:17.440
Um we think maybe of plague, but um, you know, we're not we're not sure exactly.
00:56:17.760 --> 00:56:20.480
So eight years is not that long, right?
00:56:20.719 --> 00:56:30.239
His son, Suleiman, who who comes to the throne after him, um rules, you know, by contrast with 46 years, the longest reigning sultan in Ottoman history.
00:56:30.320 --> 00:56:31.679
Uh Suleiman is.
00:56:31.760 --> 00:56:35.840
And I have arguments as to why that might be that relate to what Salim did.
00:56:36.000 --> 00:56:40.480
But nevertheless, um Saleim does a lot in those eight years.
00:56:40.639 --> 00:56:44.159
Um, he's basically constantly on campaign.
00:56:44.559 --> 00:56:59.760
Um he has uh a campaign of you know, enormously important for Ottoman history campaign against the Safavids that culminates in the Battle of Chalderon um in 1514.
00:57:00.480 --> 00:57:08.800
Um and you know comes back to Istanbul and then basically leaves again to uh to go on this campaign against the Mamluks.
00:57:08.960 --> 00:57:33.519
So the Mamluk Empire, based in Cairo, is an empire that um had ruled for uh uh over 200 years at this point, um, from Cairo uh to the west in North Africa and then up into Greater Syria, um, you know, Palestine, uh Jordan, parts of what is today Saudi Arabia, etc.
00:57:33.920 --> 00:57:45.360
Um, and um, you know, is is the kind of you know major um empire in you know the Middle East.
00:57:45.519 --> 00:57:55.599
Um the Ottomans up to that point, up to 15, 16, 15, 17, are basically a Balkan and Western Anatolian empire.
00:57:55.840 --> 00:58:00.159
So if you think the kind of western half of what is today Turkey and the Balkans, right?
00:58:00.480 --> 00:58:03.519
Majority Christian subject population, right?
00:58:03.599 --> 00:58:11.360
So the Ottoman ruling elite are Muslims, but um, the vast majority of the people they rule over are Orthodox Christians, right?
00:58:11.599 --> 00:58:21.360
Other kinds of Christians, some Jews, um, but the vast majority non-Muslim and almost, you know, not exclusively, but for the most part Christian.
00:58:21.679 --> 00:58:22.000
Okay.
00:58:22.559 --> 00:58:25.920
So um, you know, it's a smallish state.
00:58:26.320 --> 00:58:32.000
Unclear what will be the fate of the Ottomans at that point to speak about counterfactual histories.
00:58:32.800 --> 00:58:45.760
But um through a complicated set of kind of diplomatic wrangling threats and um perceived opportunities, Celine begins this campaign against the Mamluks.
00:58:46.320 --> 00:59:03.679
So he marches first to Anatolia, and I have maps in the book, of course, um, and then south to Syria, right, into Jerusalem, um, across Sinai, eventually to Cairo, right?
00:59:04.239 --> 00:59:06.480
It sacks the Mamluk Empire, right?
00:59:07.760 --> 00:59:16.559
Salim travels further in this in this um campaign than any other Ottoman Sultan had up to that point, right?
00:59:16.639 --> 00:59:19.039
Going to Cairo from Istanbul.
00:59:19.440 --> 00:59:44.800
Um and uh this this defeat basically gives him what were the Manlup territories, so North Africa through to kind of what is today Algeria, um, all of Greater Syria, a lot of um the Hejaz, the western coast of Saudi Arabia, the Arabian Peninsula, um, etc.
00:59:46.079 --> 00:59:57.840
And um and Gisim, Cairo, and all these major cities, Jerusalem, Damascus, these are cities, um, the holy cities uh in the Hejaz, of course.
00:59:58.000 --> 01:00:00.320
These are cities of huge religious import.
01:00:00.960 --> 01:00:05.519
Um, these are economic centers, uh, these are population centers.
01:00:05.760 --> 01:00:09.760
So this more than doubles the population of the empire.
01:00:10.239 --> 01:00:13.920
Uh, it makes it much more of a Muslim empire, right?
01:00:14.079 --> 01:00:19.039
This is the beginning of the population becoming majority Muslim instead of Christian.
01:00:19.679 --> 01:00:25.440
Um it makes it obviously geographically much more expansive.
01:00:26.159 --> 01:00:39.519
Um it essentially gives the Ottomans all of the Eastern Mediterranean through Egypt and the Hejaz, uh, ports on the Red Sea that allow it to reach the Indian Ocean.
01:00:40.159 --> 01:00:45.440
Um, it gives it a kind of longer border with the Safavids, right?
01:00:45.760 --> 01:00:59.519
It's it's it's a completely it completely changes the empire demographically, ideologically, in terms of its sources of legitimation, uh, geopolitically, in all kinds of ways.
01:00:59.679 --> 01:01:06.159
So, again, for me, 1516, 1517 is the most important kind of moment in Ottoman history.
01:01:06.400 --> 01:01:06.639
Right?
01:01:06.800 --> 01:01:13.920
1453 is often talked about in that way as the conquest of Constantinople, hugely important, no doubt.
01:01:14.159 --> 01:01:17.039
Um, essentially the end of the Byzantine Empire.
01:01:17.440 --> 01:01:23.360
But, you know, it doesn't change the shape of the Ottoman Empire to any huge degree, right?
01:01:23.440 --> 01:01:26.159
The Ottomans were sort of gonna get Constantinople one way or another.
01:01:26.239 --> 01:01:30.320
They had surrounded it, they had tried to invade it at numerous points.
01:01:30.480 --> 01:01:32.559
Um, it was a matter of time, right?
01:01:32.719 --> 01:01:38.880
Um, but 1516, 1517 completely changes the outlook of the empire for the rest of its history.
01:01:39.039 --> 01:01:44.239
Um, and so that's the reason that it's it's so important for uh Ottoman history.
01:01:44.320 --> 01:01:51.119
And again, and beyond that, it it makes the Ottomans relevant for the world, right?
01:01:51.280 --> 01:02:05.039
I mean, they were relevant before as well, but it really makes them um uh a kind of major player on the world stage for uh geography alone and for the fact that it touches all of these these different cultures and different regions.
01:02:05.519 --> 01:02:23.519
Um another reason that it's important, and and we sort of touched on this already, is that to rule now this hugely expanded empire, right, all the way to North Africa from the capital in Istanbul, all the way to the Hejez, right?
01:02:23.920 --> 01:02:40.079
Um you need a very sophisticated set of institutions and forms of governance, laws, uh a bureaucratic system that's going to produce people to staff this huge um administrative undertaking.
01:02:40.400 --> 01:02:52.159
Um, and so it's not a surprise that this is when we get this huge explosion of um documentary material from the Ottoman Empire, right, to rule these places.
01:02:52.400 --> 01:03:13.280
And this is why something like the Ottoman court again becomes so important to the Ottoman Empire at the time and for Ottoman historians since, um, they they become essentially kind of governing outposts in um this far-flung, um, the far-flung locations of this hugely expanded empire, right?
01:03:13.360 --> 01:03:17.519
In every town and major city, you have an Ottoman court, right?
01:03:17.920 --> 01:03:24.559
That is a place where where subjects can engage with the empire, can see the empire if you like.
01:03:25.119 --> 01:03:43.760
Um and and so, you know, if we fast forward a little bit, uh Saleim's one son, Suleiman, right, and the fact that he has one that he has one surviving son, at the very least, um, is um is is is an innovation that Saleim undertakes.
01:03:43.920 --> 01:03:54.639
Um the fact that he's known, you know, he's usually known in the in the West as Suleiman the Magnificent, but he's known as Kanuni in Turkish, so the lawgiver.
01:03:55.119 --> 01:04:04.960
One of the reasons that he is the lawgiver is precisely because he has to give laws to manage this hugely expanded empire that he inherited from his father.
01:04:05.199 --> 01:04:21.440
So, in in some ways, um, you know, all of the kind of governing innovation that we ascribe to Suleiman is an outgrowth of um what his father uh bequeathed to him um with this expanded, expanded empire.
01:04:21.679 --> 01:04:30.800
Um so anyway, there are all kinds of ways that we could talk about um the importance of 1516, 1517 um for the empire.
01:04:30.960 --> 01:04:33.199
Um, but but these are these are just a few.
01:04:33.360 --> 01:04:41.519
I mean, we can talk about uh another very important one that I discuss in the book is um the place of Islam in the empire after this period, right?
01:04:41.840 --> 01:04:48.159
This is when uh the the Ottoman Sultans come to see themselves as the keepers of the holy cities.
01:04:48.239 --> 01:04:49.679
They are the keepers of the holy cities.
01:04:49.760 --> 01:04:55.440
This is when they start to imagine themselves to be uh the caliphs of Islam, right?
01:04:55.599 --> 01:04:58.719
The preeminent Muslim leaders in the world.
01:04:59.199 --> 01:05:04.159
Um and it's again because of this expanded empire that they're able to do that.
01:05:12.480 --> 01:05:18.559
As we bring our dialogue today to a close, can you tell us about where you've devoted your attention since completing this book?
01:05:19.920 --> 01:05:45.039
Yeah, um so well, a couple a couple things, but uh you know what's probably most relevant for us is I'm I'm continuing in the vein of trying to connect um the Ottomans, but really, you know, sort of global Islam to the Atlantic world and to the Americas, uh the early modern Americas, right?
01:05:45.199 --> 01:05:50.239
So um, you know, vast early America, if you like.
01:05:50.480 --> 01:05:54.400
Um right, so that's what I've been working on.
01:05:54.480 --> 01:05:59.760
And I came to it through this, you know, what we were discussing about um the Ottomans, Ottoman, Spanish rival.
01:06:00.400 --> 01:06:18.400
And the Caribbean, I came to see that there was a whole history of the ways in which the kind of imagination and sometimes realities of Islam were present in the Americas from 1492, from the very beginning of Spanish colonialism in the Caribbean.
01:06:18.719 --> 01:06:20.719
So that's what I've been working on.
01:06:20.800 --> 01:06:44.159
I just published a book that is about a person who's often referred to as the first Muslim of New York City, who was a man called Anthony the Turk, who lived in uh New Amsterdam, so um on the island of Manhattan and on Long Island when they were Dutch colonies.
01:06:44.239 --> 01:06:46.400
So this is the first half of the 17th century.
01:06:46.480 --> 01:06:50.480
Um and he's someone who has a connection potentially to North Africa and to Spain.
01:06:50.639 --> 01:07:06.159
Um and so I, you know, I wrote a book trying to sort of tease out uh this person's life, uh, he and his family and his connections to Islam and what his story has to say about Islam in um in North America in the 17th century.
01:07:06.239 --> 01:07:11.360
Um and I'm gonna continue in in this vein of thinking about Islam and colonial America.
01:07:13.280 --> 01:07:23.920
As we end our dialogue today, I'd like to emphasize how grateful I feel for your magnanimity and generosity throughout the course of this conversation.
01:07:25.280 --> 01:07:26.079
Thank you so much.
01:07:26.159 --> 01:07:27.360
It was a lot of fun.
01:07:28.239 --> 01:07:34.639
As we end today, I'm signing off as Ari Barbalat, your host in the Dialogues and International History Podcast.
01:07:34.800 --> 01:07:38.559
Today I've been honored to engage in a conversation with Alan McHale.
01:07:39.199 --> 01:07:49.280
We have discussed his newly published book, God's Shadow, Sultan Saline, His Ottoman Empire, and the Making of the Modern World, published in New York by W.W.
01:07:49.440 --> 01:07:52.000
Norton and Company, 2020.
01:07:52.639 --> 01:07:58.000
Alan McHale is Chase Family Professor of History at Yale University.
01:07:58.559 --> 01:08:08.239
Long overlooked in the annals of world history, the Ottoman Empire served as a center of intellectual activity, geopolitical strength, and enlightened governance.
01:08:09.360 --> 01:08:32.720
During its peak in the 16th century, the Ottomans, exhibiting remarkable military superiority and exclusive control over trade routes, governed a larger expanse and a greater population than any other global power, effectively pushing Europeans out of the Mediterranean into the New World.
01:08:32.960 --> 01:08:47.600
However, despite its significant impact and pivotal role in shaping the modern world, the history of the Ottoman Empire has been misrepresented, distorted, and even suppressed in Western narratives for centuries.
01:08:47.840 --> 01:09:05.840
In response, Alan McHale offers a much-needed reinterpretation of Ottoman history, recounting the empire's global conquests through the compelling biography of Swithan Selim, who lived between 1470 and 1520.
01:09:06.800 --> 01:09:16.319
Selim, born to a concubine, and the fourth son among his father's ten offspring, was not initially destined for the throne.
01:09:17.520 --> 01:09:29.840
Through a combination of personal charm, military skill, and the support of his exceptionally talented mother, Gulbahar, Selim seized control of the empire in 1512.
01:09:30.479 --> 01:09:41.199
His relentless ambition resulted in nearly tripling the territory under Ottoman rule, establishing a governance framework that persisted into the 20th century.
01:09:41.680 --> 01:09:53.359
Concurrently, Selim, revered by his subjects as God's shadow on earth, promoted religious pluralism, inviting Jews and other minority groups into the empire.
01:09:53.680 --> 01:09:58.479
He championed education and philosophy, and he composed his own poetry.
01:09:59.119 --> 01:10:00.399
Thank you wholeheartedly.
01:10:03.039 --> 01:10:03.600
Thank you.
