Ggoddkkiller
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Comments by "Ggoddkkiller" (@ggoddkkiller1342) on "Why did the Islamic Gunpowder Empires Decline? | History of the Middle East 1600-1800 - 2/21" video.
I will mention mistakes in same order he made them from Turkish perspective;
1- Janissaries were never slave soldiers nor they ever gave up their military ways, i really wonder from which sources he could learn such nonsense really! Janissary corps existed over 500 years and ofc it kept changing in time both by demands of Janissaries and reforms done by Ottoman. Janissaries could always buy properties, retire and start civilian lives but it was strictly forbidden while they were serving they could not marry or buy any businesses. Later on it was allowed them to marry while they were still serving so not long after there were children of Janissaries and their fathers wanted to enlist them to the corps. It was refused for a while then their orphan children were allowed to enlist, soon after Muslim orphans were also accepted. Not long after Devshirme system was abolished and Janissary corps began accepting everybody. So Janissary size was rapidly increasing who were only a part Ottoman standing army and at the begining a minority. For example in 1492 Ottoman army had 6,000 Janissaries and 40,000 Sipahis, because Turks were nomads vast majority of Turkish soldiers were cavarly. However after they were allowed to marry and their children began enlisting etc the size of Janissary corps began increasing rapidly through 16 and 17th centuries. So they became dominant force within the Ottoman army and began pretty much doing whatever they wanted, revolting for higher salaries, accepting merchants and artists to the corps for bribes you name it. In 18th century Janissary member size became much larger than their actual army size and ofc Ottoman had to pay them all salaries, to reduce the burden Ottoman reduced Janissary peace time salary and increased their war time salary given directly to soldiers during their campaign so merchants etc couldn't receive it. But it didn't also fix anything as this time Janissaries began wanting war constantly and revolting simply because there was too long peace period..
2- Another reason why Ottoman literacy rate was low, Arabic alphabet was never right for Turkish. There are so many vowels in Turkish which doesn't exist in Arabic at all so it was literally impossible to correctly write many Turkish words. Ottoman literary language aka Ottoman Turkish ''fixed'' this by replacing those Turkish words with foreign words but those foreign words were never adopted by ordinary people. So this speaking and literary language difference placed a barrier between literacy and ordinary people and only educated people bothered learning Ottoman Turkish which was ofc so small part of population same as everywhere.
3- There is no evidence at all Suleiman's sons were going to betray him, Mustafa was 38 years old when he was accused for betrayal and executed. But it wasn't his doing rather simply Ottoman nobles were supporting him to become sultan anymore as he was the most loved son of Suleiman and he almost reached his 40s while Suleiman was 58. Instead of stepping down Suleiman killed him which made a lot of people upset, his youngest sick son died only weeks later. Beyazid blamed him for deaths of his brothers and indeed rebelled against him with support of some Ottoman nobles. But he was defeated and executed as well which left Selim the drunkard as the only heir of Suleiman, it was a sad episode of how to destroy a dynasty really..
4- Another mistake it is somehow told as Ottoman didn't want to reform it's army but it is just false, Ottoman was doing everything they could to reform their army but Janissaries were against it and actually rebelled several times to keep their old ways through out 18th century. For example Nizâm-ı cedîd army was established in 1792 which adopted napoleonic warfare but after a Janissary rebellion it had to be abolished in 1807. After janissary corps was abolished entirely in 1826 Ottoman could finally begin reforming it's military.
5- There were always radical Muslims same as there were radical Christians in Europe, the difference was Europe was ruled by radical Christians through out medieval ages while Muslim world was ruled by moderate Muslims. It is often ignored by westerners for obvious reasons but Turks were always traditionally quite moderate, for example do you know how many women were stoned in Ottoman in it's over 600 years old history? ONLY ONE who was a prostitute and admitted her guilt which didn't require much punishment but she also claimed she didn't do anything wrong and Ottoman laws were false. Violating Islamic laws is one thing and questioning Ottoman laws another so she got the worst punishment possible. Another example would be saudis with their radical wahabism, they actually rebelled against Ottoman and began attacking ''fake Muslims'' and tombs etc exactly same as isis did in recent years. Ottoman ordered and funded Ali Pasha to raise an army in Egypt and end their rebellion that he did without much trouble, saudis were pushed back into desert while several family members were executed. Unfortunately for Ottoman Ali Pasha's army was largely intact so he used it to fight against Ottoman for governership in more regions than Egypt. So the decline of moderate central powers and radical groups like saudis taking power was the true reason for rise of radicalism in Islamic world not printing at all..
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