In 1826, Sultan Mahmud II orchestrated the slaughter of 6,000–7,000 janissaries and, in order to incinerate any janissary remnants that had taken refuge there, burned the Belgrade Forest outside Istanbul. During his reign (1808–39), the sultan attacked many of the other bases of the ancien regime, such as the timar system, the lifetime tax farms, and the political autonomy of provincial notables. He also centralized the pious foundations, brought them under a special ministry, and expropriated their revenues. Such stories of Sultan Mahmud's dramatic and violent policies, as well as their 18th-century origins and their 19th-century legacies, are familiar ones in Ottoman and Middle Eastern history. It is a commonplace that Sultan Mahmud aimed to dismantle the power of the military and religious classes in favor of a new bureaucracy of administrators and scribes. And it is also known that his efforts had a major impact on the subsequent evolution of the Tanzimat reform programs during the later 19th century.

https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/S0020743800064837

History of the Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey: List of Abbreviations

Clothing Laws, State, and Society in the Ottoman Empire, 1720–1829

The early modern era witnessed the formation across Europe of centralized states that captured increasing shares of resources as taxes. These states not only enjoyed greater capacity to deal with domestic and external challenges, they were also able to shield their economies better against wars. This article examines the Ottoman experience with fiscal centralization using recently compiled evidence from budgets. It shows that due to high shares of intermediaries, Ottoman revenues lagged behind those of other states in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Ottomans responded to military defeats, however, and achieved significant increases in central revenues during the nineteenth century.

https://psi424.cankaya.edu.tr/uploads/files/Pamuk,%20Ott%20State%20Finances,%201500-1914%20(2010).pdf

Ottoman State Finances in European Perspective, 1500–1914

It is commonly conceded that among Muslim nations Turkey distinguishes herself by comprehensive, and as yet unparalleled, reforms with respect to the emancipation of women. These reforms, initiated by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founder of the Turkish Republic, were part of a spate of legislation which amounted to a radical break with Ottoman Islam and its institutions. World War I had resulted in the dismemberment of the defeated empire and the occupation of the Anatolian provinces by the Allied powers. The active hostility of the last Ottoman Sultan-Caliph to Kemal’s nationalist struggle in Anatolia, and his collaboration with the Allies, culminated in the abolition of the Sultanate by the Ankara government in 1922. The Turkish Republic was proclaimed on 29 October 1923. A few days earlier, on 24 October, the Istanbul head of police had taken an administrative decision desegregating public transport, so that men and women would no longer be separated by curtains or special compartments. Thereafter, a systematic onslaught on Ottoman institutions took place.

End of Empire: Islam, Nationalism and Women in Turkey

Table of cases Table of treaties Abbreviations Introduction Part I. War as Law Enforcement (to 1600): 1. Ares and Athena 2. Loving enemies and hating sin Part II. New Forces Stirring (1600-1815): 3. War in due form 4. Dissension in the ranks Part III. War as State Policy (1815-1919): 5. Collisions of naked interest 6. Tame and half-hearted war: intervention, reprisal and necessity 7. Civil strife Part IV. Just Wars Reborn (1919- ): 8. Regulating war 9. A farewell to war? 10. New fields of battle Conclusion Bibliography.

War and the law of nations

One metaphor for assessing Turkey’s economic performance in the twentieth century may be to ask whether the glass is half full or half empty. On the one hand, Turkey has experienced far-reaching economic changes since the early 1920s. The primarily rural and agricultural economy of the early twentieth century has transformed into a mostly urban economy. Average or per capita incomes have increased more than fivefold during this period. Other indicators of standards of living have also improved significantly. Life expectancy at birth has almost doubled from under thirty-five years in the interwar era to sixtynine years. Adult literacy rates have increased from about 10 per cent to about 90 per cent (Table 10.1). On the other hand, it would be misleading to judge economic performance only in absolute terms. The twentieth century, especially its second half, was a period of rapid increases in the standards of living in most parts of the developing world, of which Turkey is still considered a part. Increases in per capita incomes in Turkey since the First World War have been close to, but slightly above, world averages and averages for the developing countries. The income per capita gap between Turkey and the high-income countries of Western Europe and North America was about the same in 2005 as it was on the eve of the First World War. Certainly, Turkey has not been one of the miracle-producing economies of the twentieth century. Moreover, its record in human development has been weaker than its record in economic growth, close to but perhaps below average for the developing world. In addition, these increases or improvements have not all been achieved at a steady pace. In fact, Turkey’s economy has been plagued by recurring political and macroeconomic instability that has led to a number of crises, especially in the second half of the twentieth century. The most severe of these, a financial crisis, occurred in 2001. That the economy managed to rebound strongly within a few years should perhaps remind us of the above metaphor.

History of the Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey: List of Abbreviations

Citations

Clothing Laws, State, and Society in the Ottoman Empire, 1720–1829

Ottoman State Finances in European Perspective, 1500–1914

End of Empire: Islam, Nationalism and Women in Turkey

War and the law of nations

Economic change in twentieth-century Turkey: is the glass more than half full?

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