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The Nature of the Early Ottoman State (Suny Series in the Social and Economic
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The Nature of the Early Ottoman State (Suny Series in the Social and Economic History of the Middle East) Unknown - 2003

by Heath W. Lowry

From the publisher

Drawing on surviving documents from the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, The Nature of the Early Ottoman State provides a revisionist approach to the study of the formative years of the Ottoman Empire. Challenging the predominant view that a desire to spread Islam accounted for Ottoman success during the fourteenth-century advance into Southeastern Europe, Lowry argues that the primary motivation was a desire for booty and slaves. The early Ottomans were a plundering confederacy, open to anyone (Muslim or Christian) who could meaningfully contribute to this goal. It was this lack of a strict religious orthodoxy, and a willingness to preserve local customs and practices, that allowed the Ottomans to gain and maintain support. Later accounts were written to buttress what had become the self-image of the dynasty following its incorporation of the heartland of the Islamic world in the sixteenth century.

Details

  • Title The Nature of the Early Ottoman State (Suny Series in the Social and Economic History of the Middle East)
  • Author Heath W. Lowry
  • Binding unknown
  • Publisher State University of New York Press
  • Date May 2003
  • ISBN 9780791456354

About the author

Heath W. Lowry is Atatrk Professor of Ottoman and Modern Turkish Studies at Princeton University and the author of Studies in Defterology: Ottoman Society in the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries.

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