The Ottoman History and the Paradigmatic Principles of History -xıx- (*) (Mustafa Özcan, April 2016)

The Ottoman History and the Paradigmatic Principles of History -xıx- 

To see how productive multidirectional assessment of the important events in the history’s orbit holistically with a dialectic view and opposite thesis could be in reaching paradigmatic principles, I would like to do this by discussing an exemplary event that I thought was of great historical importance: Nizip Battle.

Nizip Battle is a battle that occurred in 1839 in Nizip between Egypt and the Ottoman with a wide-ranging scope and results, though it was not a very big combat in itself.  Though this battle did not constitute the first stage of the incident between the parties that faced each other in the form of rebellion and repression, it is very instructive in the context of the dialectic of the center-periphery relations between an empire state and a major autonomous "state" that is a part of it as khediviate.  But it is instructive above all else with respect to showing up where the results of the relationship balance deteriorating against the center could lead to.

The Ottomans suffered a serious defeat in three hours in the battle fought in the Nizip plain between the Egyptian army commanded by Ibrahim Pasha, the son of the Mehmet Ali Pasha of Kavala who was the Khedive of Egypt, and the Ottoman army commanded by Hafiz Pasha. The United Kingdom and Austria, which did not want the disintegration of the Ottoman State at that time and were still uncomfortable with the Sultan's Pier Treaty that had been signed with Russia in 1933 six years before the war and covered the issue of military assistance, sent their naval forces to the region between Egypt and Syria to intervene in the situation and to cut off the sea supply route of Ibrahim Pasha. When Ibrahim Pasha was forced to return to Egypt after the intervention, The Ottoman Empire was back from the brink of disintegration in a way.

This event is significant with respect to showing that the State was incompetent enough in the 19th century to rule over its provincial governor and it also is the antithesis of a religious dimension in terms of its purpose and content to the 2nd Siege of Vienna that started the decline of the Ottomans in the Christian Europe. Because, the Ottomans had began to be pushed back by another Muslim country in the Muslim land of Middle East. The event is also remarkable with respect to showing the holistic character of such matters as it became an international issue while it was the Ottoman’s internal problem. 

Another aspect of the incident is the actual participation in the battle by Staff Captain Helmuth von Moltke, as well as his staff, who had been sent by the Kingdom of Prussia to serve as an advisor to Hafiz Pasha on the war and who would later be the longest-serving German Chief of Staff and Field Marshal. The fact that the report that had been delivered to the Palace by Moltke, who had difficulties in reaching Istanbul after the battle, caused some generals who fought the battle to be executed due to treason also shows the confidence that Mahmut  II had in the Prussian military staff. 

Furthermore, the title of pasha conferred by Abdulmecit, who had replaced Mahmut II who had died at that time, on Bedirhan Bey, the chief and the commander of the Kurdish Bedirhan tribe due to the successful fight he put up in the war on the side of the Ottoman army reveals the importance of the solidarity between the Turkish and Kurdish communities, which is another side of the issue, as it was something that happened for the first time in the Ottoman history. 

***.

Moltke is the commander who would create, together with Bismarck and Roon, the constituent military triumvirate that played the lead role in the establishment of the German Empire in 1871 by the military forces of Prussian origin. 

However, he is well ahead of others because of his intellectuality.

In terms of intellectuality, Moltke is a multi-faceted personality who came to the fore in the history by drawing attention to himself as he had the personality of a painter, a writer, and a statesman , as well as his interest in music, poetry, art, archeology, and theater. The fact that he was able to speak Turkish as well along with such Indo-European languages as German, Danish, English, French, Italian and Spanish shows that He really had universal qualifications. His public promotion in Berlin with a fez on his head of his memoirs, translated into Turkish by the name "Letters of Turkey, which told about the events that he had experienced during the time that passed from his arrival in Turkey in 1834 to his return in 1840 must be an expression of his personality. On the other hand, we should, however, point out by the way that he was also a German conservative despite his Danish origin and background. This case describes the breadth and depth of Moltke's career scope. This holism of breadth and depth must have provided Him an exceptionally successful military and statesmanship career. 

As my aim in this article is, besides those I stated, to emphasize to the extent possible the matter that the issues should be viewed in a dialectical and holistic manner, I would like to draw attention, as an example providing such an approach, to the long-term consistency and depth of the determinations of holistic approach that intellectual Moltke made about the country during his staff service in the Ottoman. 

Therefore, I finally quote, in this context, some of these general observations contained in a report that Moltke had sent to Germany in 1934 while he was a young staff officer that spoke about the state of the Ottoman like the prophecies of amazing consistency: 

 “Economical situation has plummeted because of the lack of land ownership and the low production. The of new army of seventy thousand is old in terms of its commanders and has to reach every corner of the huge empire. Provinces and sanjaks have been independent thoroughly and have strengthened against the State. The deployment of the Russian army of one hundred and fifty thousand people that came to protect the Capital City was allowed on the Anatolian side. This situation has created great discontent in the country. The Ottoman Empire is a stack of principalities, duchies, and governorships from now on. This case is like telling that the empire will soon end! “

Mustafa Özcan (April 2016)

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(*) To be continued.

The Ottoman History and the Paradigmatic Principles of History -XVIII- (*) (Mustafa Özcan, March 2016)

The Ottoman History and the Paradigmatic Principles of History -XVIII- 

When the Ottoman history is reviewed through a holistic perspective under the projection of the various integrative views introduced into the understanding of history in the 20th century such as the Annales School viewpoint, the World System theory, Big History approach, and the Cliodynamics (Mathematical) History model that I talked about in the earlier sections of this series, I suppose the topic will have been discussed in substance in a way that until now has not been very popular.

But first an issue needs to be clarified. 

Unlike the Western history that is a diversified culture of documents, the most referenced sources even today in the science of history that are related to the Ottoman history are mainly the chronicles or, in other words, annals.

They are subjective written documents, in the form of informational records of events that include a lot of the author's subjective views and comments, which have the historical events recorded in chronological order (on a calendar basis) by the chronicler. Therefore, the Ottoman history still offers a view of a discipline that reached less objectivity compared with the Western history which has more scientific weight. 

Due to its own peculiarity in this context, it also has a character that could allow the emergence of some paradigmatic principles for the science of general history which is a social discipline that addresses the past. In other words, it is suitable to all deductive inference because of this embryonic niche disciplinary feature of the Ottoman history. When this feature is addressed within the context of an approach that deals with the issue on a “high theoretical” basis, it creates the opportunity to find out some new and significant basic principles, namely paradigms for the general history. The humble efforts of this series of articles are in this direction.

***

In the period when the Ottoman reached maturity as an empire, the "Old World" had already reached its natural limits in terms of population density and the estate of unexplored areas of land. In this direction, the Westerners in the European and Eurasian geography of the Afro-Eurasia that is called the “Old World” were busy at the end of the Middle Ages with seeking overseas land and the discovery of the “New World” unlike the Ottomans.

Yet, instead of allowing such a world order, the Ottomans, still in pursuit of looting under the concept of a classical military empire, were pursuing in this period an erroneous geo-strategy like making do with conquesting cultured geographies. Major powers targeting the discovery of the regions not yet cultured in a modern style were doing this increasingly for the acquisition of the natural resources and wealth that were required for financial and industrial production or with the economic goals that were needed towards their control, instead of getting booty, apart from the exceptional circumstances as was the case for the Spaniards for example. 

Thus, “Major Modern Powers” had begun to free themselves from depending on the Earth’s "finite" lands that were in depletion by allowing the start of the capitalist mode of production with the transition , from land to capital, of the dominance in the trio of land, labor and capital, which are the main productive factors in the economy. Thus, the modern world has begun creating the capitalist system by using the "unlimited" factor of capital created by humans to replace the “limited” land factor to keep under control the labor factor that was the basic productive force. 

In this context, while the European feudal system was performing a geo-economic transformation in tune with the times, AMP (*), which was the unique land use system of the Ottomans,  prevented the country of Ottoman Treasury [beyt-ul mal (**)] from transiting to the capitalist structure by making a modern transformation.

Because beyt-ul mal was confined to the tithe (***) declining over time that stemmed from the land getting increasingly smaller and unproductive due to the possibilities it created for the increased fragmentation, instead of territorial concentration, in parallel to the rapidly increasing number of timar principalities. This situation is obviously the foremost one in the main economic-political phenomena that hampered the process of capital accumulation in the Ottoman territory.

The fact that the domestic rate of capital accumulation across the country has been even today around ten percent on the average since the start in 1960s of the planned development periods, in which its objective determination was made, indicates that this centuries-old low capitalization phenomenon that has become "traditional" still continues. This phenomenon of low accumulation is essentially a likely outcome of the tradition of ten percent that stemmed from the attitude based on “alms” that is known originally as transferring in a religious context the savings on hand to others.

I also wish to mention this point in terms of the economic history.

The transition in the Protestant Christian regions to the practice of interest, instead of getting a dividend from the lending business, under pressure by the bankers mostly of  Jewish origin has accelerated capital "concentration." Even if the income from the agriculture tax (ten percent) had continued regularly, it would still have not been possible for the Ottomans to reach the speed of economic modernization in these countries, which have leapt ahead as a result of the country-wide capital accumulation of a total of one-fifth that occurred in the modern West together with the additional financial capital share of ten percent received by the depositors and bankers. 

The paradigmatic principle that could be inferred here for the integrative general (holistic) history is the formulation that the system based on the geo-economic strategy will always prevail over the system based on the military geo-strategy in the long-term process of historical development (****).

Mustafa Özcan (March 2016)

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(*) Asiatic Mode of Production is the name in the materialist discipline of political economy that discusses the timar system with an infrastructural view.

(**) The name formerly used for the Ottoman treasury that had a unique income tax system.

(***) Öşür (Tithe) is an Arabic word meaning one tenth or, in other words, ten percent that was used by the Ottomans that had the tradition of islamic alms. 

(****) To be continued.

“The California School of Economic History”

“The California School of Economic History”

On the below link (*) you can find an artical which is introducing “The California School of Economic History”.

“The California School of Economic History” is a working group, which have more closer “holistic history" approach than other academic institutions in the US.

(*) http://www.thecusponline.org/2013/01/the-california-school-of-economic.html 

The Ottoman History and the Paradigmatic Principles of History -XVII- (*) (Mustafa Özcan, 15.03.2016)

The Ottoman History and the Paradigmatic Principles of History -XVII-

When the Ottoman State is considered globally in the nature of its historical essence with the general lines taken into consideration in terms of the functionality in its structure in parallel to its stratification, the existence of three main organizational structures is observed as the foundation of the state system: Military, religious, and professional. On the other hand, it stands out that these three institutions in question had also created a stratification as military, intellectual, and ahi community cadres as actual entities within the framework of the stratification in the social structure.

The military class, which originally came from Seljuks as the organization and maintained its presence as old Principalities that might be considered provincial, has increasingly been over time an element of the central structure focused on Dynasty with the opportunities provided by the expansion in Rumelia as a region in Europe. Again as a class close to the Dynasty, the intellectuals, who have been represented by the chiefs of the sects as the organization in the provinces during the period of establishment, have started to be represented later on by the scholars in the “capital” of the Dynasty with the seizure of the power of this area by such people.

On the other hand, it should especially be noted here at this juncture that the center of gravity of the ruling power has exhibited an oscillating movement throughout the Ottoman history between the center and the periphery. It would be correct and appropriate to state that this situation, that is to say, the volatility of the center of the ruling power between the center and the periphery, has been the result of a state structure based on conquest rather than production, namely, one based on superstructural, instead of infrastructural, social system.   

Also, it is known that a  class of “bureaucrats” emerged in this process that has taken place in the last centuries of the Empire as a result of the bureaucratization which is an unavoidable maturation phenomenon occurring over time in the structure of the state. As the beginning of this bureaucratic institutionalization in question, it would be appropriate to acknowledge the "Tulip Era", which was the time when the Western type of diplomacy appeared in the Ottoman Empire. However, I think that the Reforms period was necessary to wait for a process of Western-type bureaucratization in a real sense.

There is also another similar case that needs to be emphasized too along with the shifts in the center of power of horizontal dimension occurring between the center and the periphery. They are the shifts in the power base that have been seen throughout the history as an oscillating movement between the organizations of ahi community and the intellectuals as the most important basic-elemental indicator of the vertical dimension, which is an dichotomous polar form of embodiment.  

On the other hand, it is clearly noticeable, with respect to providing material and spiritual aspects to the people as individuals, hence to the formation of community as a collective structure, the institutionalization of commercial (economic) nature has provided the Ottoman Imperial System with a lower level of representation in total than the one of the religious nature in terms of providing social values. It would be an appropriate determination to say that the first one of these two social institutions gained strength especially in periods of rise of the Empire and the other one in periods of stagnation and decline.

Considering the subject again to in this context, the goal of the Ottoman as an imperial order appears to have been the provision and supervision of the security of physical access to trade and commodity transactions and a healthy global communication in the broad geography that has been conquered.

In this regard, it may be said that the Ottoman Empire has, as a form of "hegemonic order" providing for its existence for the purpose that was mentioned, provided the last example of the "Medieval Imperial Order" of the West and the Middle East with respect to the extent of natural-continental limits in the geography that it accessed, considering the population density.

Therefore, I think it is worth emphasizing that the term "Pax Ottomana" is not misleading at all. (*)

Mustafa Özcan (15.03.2016)

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(*) To be continued.

The Ottoman History and the Paradigmatic Principles of History -XVI- (*) (Mustafa Özcan, 11.02.2016)

The Ottoman History and the Paradigmatic Principles of History -XVI-

I believe the section with fifteen titles in the series, in which a conceptual evaluation was made by considering various aspects of the general history, reached a sufficient volume. As I am sure the valuable readers can supply the missing conceptual areas, I think time has now come to start looking for trends, implications, principles, paradigms that could be distilled from the Ottoman History for the general history.

On the other hand, I believe it would be a very productive intellectual endeavor to observe the Ottoman Empire, which appeared to be imperial rather than imperialist when discussed with a summative view, in terms of searching for the paradigmatic principles of the history.

I assume that the first image visible in a brief look to be taken at the Great Ottoman State, as it is officially called, from the broadest historical perspective would briefly be a three-tier social structure and that it would be possible for that to be described briefly as follows:

We can say that there was an understanding, in the Ottoman’s prominent imperial feature, in which it was essential to execute the sovereignty of the Dynasty, which was the "Top" layer in the first hierarchy, in the lands conquered in the mission in line with the apparent goal of spreading Islam in the Christian Continental Europe that it saw as the war zone. That is to say, as was the case with all empires in history, Islam seems to have been applied as a means in order to maintain the hegemony of a Dynasty on the basis of religion. However, this feature of the Empire appears to have remained as a fact not clearly expressed.

Looking further down the socio-political system of the Ottoman in the context provided above, the following picture is faced with in parallel to the sharing-based stratification that occurred in the society;

It would be appropriate to mention the coterie of Ottoman pashas and nobles and those who represented the military as the ones generally included in the second "Top" layer with Timar under the Dynasty. The thing that is dominant in this segment, namely, the expectation of this segment, is somewhat more differentiated from the Dynasty and it aims basically at increasing its stake in sharing the booty coming from the plunder, pillage, and spoils in the conquests. The expectation for the distribution of the material benefits that will be obtained from the annual rackets and Timar allowances of the property added to the Ottoman Land should also be mentioned in this regard. The thing that these two Top rulers expect from the producing subjects, the broad masses that are below them, constituting the bottom layer in the Ottoman Land, is their participation mostly in burden not boon.

In order for the achievement of this apparent goal in the direction of maintaining the phenomenon of Global State of Islam, the producing Muslim subjects are expected to embrace and adopt this phenomenon. Thus, the people are asked to be ready in serving the sacred purpose by taking part at the forefront in the war always by participating as foot soldiers and privates in the battle; and this phenomenon is also seen as their duty.  

At this point, I would like to have a socio-psychic link provided to the subject by referring to the following words of the subjects, a well-known and highly succinct satirizing expression.

“Ottoman with loose slacks, 

Ottoman with medium-size saddles,

Not planting, not harvesting, 

Ottoman partnering in eating.” (*)  

Mustafa Özcan (11.02.2016)

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(*) To be continued.

The Ottoman History and Paradigmatic Principles of the History -xv- (*) (Mustafa Özcan, 18.01.2016)

The Ottoman History and Paradigmatic Principles of the History -xv-

When researching Paradigmatic Principles of the History, I would like to discuss through this article my view on the issue that the three main intellectual areas - the narrative, philosophy, and science of the history - that are especially likely to be popular need to be considered. In fact, the necessity of such an approach in terms of completing the totality of the flow of subject in such treatments in the form of series of articles have probably been noticed by the valued readers that have been following up the series since the beginning.

Narrative or, in other words, a form that could be designated as the descriptive story-telling represents as a literary genre an informative flow of words that develops mostly by proceeding in the direction of underlying network of events. 

On the other hand, the questioning in the philosophical treatment of what the causes of historical events could be forms the basis of the framework of idea in this category. The framework applied here reveals the structure that creates the methodological approach. When viewed from a practical point, the method represents here, as always was the case, the functionality that is essentially the foremost at all times that reveals the  method in discovering “how” of the subject. 

However, the grounds reached when paradigmatic principles are discussed to be researched not in practical terms but rather on a theoretical or, in other words, abstract scientific basis reflects a level that has been quite complicated.

For instance, as a perspective that will be applied in the scientific treatment that is in question in such a situation, while the issue is to be viewed on the one hand from a micro-sociological plane based on interpretation,  a factual (factuality verifiable with statistical data) framework of causality on the other hand needs to be created in the flow of macro-sociological perspective and the narrative. 

In the narrative of Big History, an approach with a dichotomous structure that is socially in the form of micro/macro as indicated is required due to the inevitable existence of a factuality with maximum breadth because of the time being the widest and the space being the greatest.

In other words, we can say that the style in handling the issue, in line with micro-sociological interpretational and macro-sociological statistical approaches that will be taken simultaneously and in parallel, and these two sociological elements being integral polar supplements to each other reflect a situation that is both necessary and mandatory.

While macro-sociological treatment takes us to the Cliodynamical model that approaches history from a mathematical foundation, the micro view leads to referring to biographies, oral history, and local history (*).

Mustafa Özcan (18.01.2016)

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(*) To be continued.

The Ottoman History and Paradigmatic Principles of the History -xıv- (*) (Mustafa Özcan, 17.01.2016)

The Ottoman History and Paradigmatic Principles of the History -xıv- (*)

When we look at what is included as the curriculum in the scope of the subject of “Big History”, it appears that the cosmogony of the universe starting with the narrative based on astrophysics is discussed at the first stage as mentioned. 

The story in this context begins with the "Big Bang" that is considered to have occurred 13,8 billions years ago within the Planck Time that is expressed as 10^-43 seconds from a point singularity of high intensity and heat as a result of quantum fluctuations. Following this incomprehensible event, the narrative continues with the description of formation of the universe with four cosmic dimensions, three of space and one of time, that occurred with the cosmic expansion in the shape of inflation that took place within a period of one hundred billionth of a second.

Although there are some nuances among the authors in the content of the curriculum that follows, information is provided mostly about the formation of galactic nebula that was the result of the energy / matter transformation that had appeared with cosmic expansion.

The backbone of the curriculum in this respect is composed of the information about the process in which hydrogen nucleus, namely proton, that emerged as the primordial substance in one hundredth of a second following the Big Bang and the inflation and the helium nucleus that was synthesized from it by nuclear fusion get stabilized. Thus, galactic nebulae and primary stars that provided the first light of the universe at the end of the 379 thousand years that had passed for the matter to get stabilized provide us with an earliest picture of the universe that we can see by creating the ancient universe. The next part of the story of cosmic evolution includes the narrative about the formation of heavier elements as a result of internal crash and explosion due to gravity of these primary stars that depleted their nuclear fuel in a very short time by converting their hydrogen into helium through stellar fusion. Stars of the secondary type occur as the condensation products of the nebulae that included the light elements in the primary stars of the first type and the heavy elements at the rate of one thousandth that occurred during the death of those stars with the super nova. The formation of planetary systems by those stars that include the sun as well is located at the focal point of the narrative of the next segment as the development story of the modern universe currently in the case of our system only.

Although the geological and ecological story forms the basis of the narrative focused on the biosphere and biological evolution for the globe due to being the only place of vitality that is known yet, it stands out that rather different themes can be noticed among the authors in the weighting of the curriculum here. While an author constructs the theme in terms of human ecology, another one can put it forth on the axis of world geography. Also, the weight is given by some authors to the aspect of history in handling the issue through the adoption of a paleo-anthropologically weighted theme in line with a prehistoric approach.  

On the other hand, adoption of a decentralized curriculum is also possible by diversifying the areas underlying the narrative, instead of focusing on a particular aspect and weighting the curriculum in that direction. Astronomy, cosmology, physics, chemistry, evolutionary biology, paleontology, anthropology, archeology disciplines are all used effectively in such treatments. In this case, the backbone of the narrative’s theme is based on the natural history and environmental (ecological) geography. As the subject was based in previous treatments on one of the bipolar upper categorial views as the history or science, it is clear that the third upper categorial view apart from these two could be over the natural history and environmental (ecological) geography.

It seems that the environmental (ecological) phenomenon appears to have been adopted mostly as the main theme for this new form of narrative of the broadest history. However, a situation with two preferences comes forward here as well. While one is the approach that treats our planet as a live holistic whole in the style of Gaia Theory, the other adopts the analytic-reductionist approach based on the ecosystem.

Another issue that should not be passed without mentioning about the Big History is the question of what the stigmergic essence directing the whole narrative is all about. It is known in such types of processes for formation and flow of information that the time arrow, namely the entropy as the second law of thermodynamics, is inevitably active as the order-disrupting agent. Moving from the point that information, which is the essential ingredient of energy dissipative structures trying to overcome disruptiveness by setting up and feeding a system, goes against entropy, it would be correct to say that the phenomenon of complexation constantly increasing in the space / time flow was the stigmergic essence and that it managed the process. 

In fact, David Christian, who coined the term of  “Big History,” discusses the subject even in his first book (**) by constructing it as an eight-step complexation process developing in the space / time flow. It is seen that the same structuring in the same curriculum has been adopted by the author in his new book that he co-authored with two other authors, C. S. Brown and C. Benjamin (***).

To put it in general if necessary, as the 21st Century moves forward, according to my opinion, towards the tendency to become the age of grasping the universe through a holistic perspective, the adoption of the Big History design as the most appropriate historical approach based on the  holistic understanding would be the right choice. 

(Mustafa Özcan, 17.01.2016)

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(*) To be continued.

(**) Christian. D. , Maps of Time: An Inroduction to Big History, University of California Press, 2004.

(***)Christian, D. , C.S. Brown and C. Benjamin, Big History: Between Nothing and Everything, McGraw-Hill Education, 2014.