Ottoman Empire Quotes

Mehmet Talaat Pasha was one of the national leaders who adopted the policy of extermination of the Armenians. The Christian Armenians, a minority in Turkey and its lands, were discriminated against like other non-Muslim minorities in the Ottoman Empire. But during the Turkish War with Russia, some Armenians defected and served on the Russian side. Many Turkish citizens took revenge on Armenians by means of murder and torture. Soon, the extermination of the Armenians became the official “Young Turk” government policy.

This quotation illustrated the extreme polarization between the current fundamentalist Muslims, and the Muslim modernists and the West. Kamal Ataturk, the great leader and stateman who is the father of modern Turkey, is castigated by the author for leading the new Turkish parliament to depose the Caliph – the civil and religious autocrat, one of whom reigned from after the death of Muhammad till his abolishment in 1924. Most of the rest of the world credits Ataturk with being one of the great leaders of all time—one who led a democratic revolution which transformed Turkey into the only Muslim secular democracy, requiring pubic secular European type education for all children, giving women the right to vote (before the U. S. even), adopting a European alphabet and dress, and outlook on life—creating most remarkably a total cultural revolution with virtually no loss of life. No revolutionary leader, before or since has led so extensive a political and cultural revolution, and it was a bloodless revolution. Turkey, into the 21st century, was by far the most powerful, industrialized, scientific and modern nation of Muslims in the world and others were far behind. Yet many Islamic theologian still castigate Atatork for his great achievements as being against the will of God.

The Turkish revolution was by historical standards relatively bloodless as compared especially with other republican revolutions like the United State and France. However, the revolution that brought Ataturk to power was a relatively mild one in terms of the immediate changes that unlike many revolutions which produced instant radical change. In Turkey, the radical change took place in the years after the revolution when Ataturk with hardly any bloodshed produced compulsory public secular education, scientific elevation in society, separation of mosque and state, gender equality including universal voting, change to western dress, elimination of the caliphate, speech and press freedom, and many others including changing the entire language to use the Latin alphabet instead of Arabic. No nation in history has gone thought more social and cultural change and modernized so fast as Turkey after its revolution. The result is the most modern and successful Islamic country in the world.

Voltaire had little respect for any organized religion, but found Islam particularly barbaric and absurd. However he was also very negative about Christianity. See {621191} . The Ottoman Empire, centered in Turkey, then controlled all the Islamic countries of the Middle East. Europeans then often referred to all Muslims as “Turks.”

Ataturk as part of his radical reforms elevated secular teachers to a very high social status and moved science and engineering into the curriculum over the objections of traditionalists and Islamic fundamentalists, and he did this in an overwhelmingly Muslim country.

He was sent into exile.

The Byzantine emissary had pointed out that Mehmed’s predecessors had signed a treaty agreeing to “consult” with Constantinople before building any fortified structure in the area surrounding Constantinople. Mehmed was only 19 years old at this time. His intention f building a fort was to have a platform from which to attack and capture Constantinople itself which he did 2 years later. Earlier, the Eastern Roman Empire was much stronger and the Ottoman sultans were more cautious in dealing with them. However, the various Christian factions were all feuding with each other, and Mehmed II, despite his youth, was much better organized and was a better leader than his predecessors.

Ataturk wrote this manual personally. Religious Turks took violent offense to Ataturk’s proclamation that Turks were great without Islam.

The Christian Armenians, a minority in Turkey and its lands, were discriminated against like other non Muslim minorities in the Ottoman Empire. But during the Turkish War with Russia and WWI, some Armenians defected and served on the Russian side. Many Turkish citizens took revenge on Armenians by means of murder and torture. Soon, the extermination of the Armenians became the official “Young Turk” government policy. Hundreds of thousands of Armenians were killed outright, and about an equal number were “deported” to special areas. Many died of malnutrition along the forced march of Ethnic Cleansing. Others were murdered as they were deported. No one knows exactly how many Armenians were killed with estimates ranging from ½ million to 4 million. This was the first genocide of the 20th century. Modern Turkish leaders however, are in denial about the Armenian deaths. They claim that there was a war and food was scarce; the only Armenians killed, the claimed were proven Russian agents. They further claim that the Armenian behavior was in large part responsible for the forced deportations because of their lack of patriotism and unwillingness to help the Turkish authorities identify the Russian agents. Most Turks today are unaware of the Armenian Genocide as nothing is taught about the massacres in schools or other institutions. It is against the law in Turkey to even have an intellectual study of the Turkish behavior towards the Armenians, much less publish anything about it.

The Ottoman Turks had already conquered the Eastern Roman empire outside of Byzantium. They had overwhelming superiority and it was just a matter of time when they would take the city. Surrender would have been the sensible course, but religious passion against surrendering the holy city capital of Christendom to the Muslims was dominant in the Emperor and some of the leadership. But the morale of most was very low—and for good reason. The Ottomans soon captured the city.

Turkey, even a century later, takes great offense at the terms “holocaust” or “genocide” to describe the death of so many Armenians. The censor newspapers and jail academics who even want to have conferences to study the question. This is in great contrast to Germany which faced its genocidal killings squarely and built a society and government structure to never forget it and always focus on preventing a reoccurrence,

Ottoman Turkish Sultan Mehmed II Aeneas Sylvius Piccolomini. 6 years earlier, the Ottoman Turks, had captured Byzantium (Constantinople, later Istanbul), the capital of the Eastern Roman Empire. The Pope had called together the rulers and leaders of Christendom to organize a common defense in this war of civilizations. This was the period where Christian Islamophobia began. The Muslims had a religious duty to convert the rest of the world to Islam and adopt Islamic law (Sharia). However, so did the Christians. Sultan Mehmed II, when he conquered Byzantium, did not require the conversion of the Christians in the great city. He took the greatest churches, but by and large left the Christians to worship in their own Churches. The Muslims at the time were far more tolerant of Christians (and Jews) than the Christians were of Muslims (and Jews). Like in the 21st century, there was much Islamic doctrine and reality to be worried about, but not all the Muslims were as rabid and extreme as Eastern paranoia suggested in the 15th century or the 21st.

Pasha Muhammed Ali was the Ottoman Overlord of Egypt and Syria. He is an unusual example of a leader who was a realist relative to the skills and abilities of his family for succession. His family indeed could not hold Egypt.

Ataturk wrote this manual personally as he not only wanted to Westernize Turkey but also generate a climate for acceptance of his vision for a reformed Turkey amongst the Western nations.

Ataturk had been a military hero, but was very much opposed to war and military adventurism not unlike the Dwight Eisenhower and Colin Powell type leaders. However, the one thing that he thought worth the sacrifice of his own and other Turkish lives was Turkish independence and sovereignty. Historically, the Ottoman Empire which Ataturk finally ended, had dominated half of Europe and all of the Mid East at the cost of sovereignty of other nations and Ataturk saw no more important virtue with dying for than national sovereignty. See {125322} and {584501}.

In 1925 his administration had passed a law banning the wearing of the traditional Muslim hat.