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18th Century Empires

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At the dawn of the eighteenth Century the Ottomans, while perceived by the Western powers to be in decline, were still a moving force in world politics. The heart of the Ottoman Empire homelands was strategically located at the crossroads of the great trade routes of the medieval world. Situated near the convergence of the Silk Roads, the Indian Ocean Routes, the Volga, the Danube, and the Mediterranean the Ottomans enjoyed political, economic and social influence over a large portion of Eastern Europe, Africa, and the Middle East The many provincial governments and diplomatic outposts in the countries controlled by the Ottomans functioned as effective and essential arms of the central bureaucracy. Encompassing vast swaths of territory, the …show more content…
This included the Turks, Persians, Mongols, Mesopotamians and Islam. This diverse hegemony of ethnic cultures creating the Ottoman political structure allowed it to develop into an effective and complex bureaucracy that would influence and even mold Western political thought. As the titular monarch, the Sultans primary role was that of protectorate of his people and overseer of governmental officials. To accomplish this a number of institutions and practices were established in the governmental groups surrounding the Sultan. The first was a bureaucracy drawn from the Sultans inner circle. This bureaucracy in turn controlled local governments; this would become the model of European absolutism in the seventeenth century.(2) Additional practices and institutions developed by the Ottoman Government included a severe set of punishments imposed by the Sultan as the means by which corrupt public agents and officials were investigated and tried known as the Siyaset. Policies of Public declaration of laws and taxes, military codes of conduct and ethics, public opinion forums and early forms of opinion polling were all instituted by the ottomans as early as the seventeenth century. Perhaps accessibility was the most important development, in allowing the public access to government officials, departments and …show more content…
In an effort to provide effective jurisdictional control of these new subjects of the empire, the Ottoman government instituted a new system, which came to be known as the millet system. Taken from the Arabic word for “nation”, the structure of the millet indicated that the empire considered themselves the protectors of these multiple nations. Within this organizational system each religious group was organized into a millet. Therefore each religious group was considered its own millet, with multiple millets existing within the empire. This structure allowed the millets to choose a religious leader from within their own millet to lead them. The right to uphold and enforce the rules specific to their own religion was a hallmark of the millet system. Islamic law had no jurisdiction over non-Muslims in the Ottoman Empire. Additionally millets were allowed the freedom to continue the use of their own languages, develop and maintain their own schools, churches, civic institutions and collect taxes. The Ottoman sultan exercised control over the millets only through their leaders. The millet leaders ultimately reported to the sultan, and if there was a problem with a millet, the sultan would consult that millet leader. The millet system was a unique and adaptive solution to ruling a multi-ethnic and

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