LECTURE 1. INTRODUCTION

Subjects covered:

1. The prophet Muhammad and religion of Islam. The Great Islamic empires of the Umayyads and Abbasids. Decline of Islam.

2. The Turks. Origins in Central Asia, conversion to Islam, entry into the Middle East before the rise of the Ottomans.

3. Ottoman social and administrative organization. The Ottoman Ruling Class and Subject Class divided into religiously-based millets, mystic religious orders (dervishes), and economic guilds; the provincial system in Southeastern Europe and the Middle East. Affect of Capitulation rights of European subjects and Ottoman Christians.

4. The subject peoples of the Empire: Muslims, Jews, Christians, Turks, Arabs, Persians, Armenians, Greeks, Slavs. Included modern states of Turkey, Serbia, Bosnia, Croatia, Greece, Bulgaria, Rumania, Albania, Egypt, Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Libya, Tunisia, Algeria, parts of Morocco, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia. Organized into autonomous religiously based communities called millets and economically into craft guilds.

5. Military and diplomatic relations with the states of Europe. 'The Eastern Question.'

6. Ottoman decline and disintegration starting in the middle of the 16th century and continuing to the end of the 18th century.

7. Traditionalistic Ottoman reform.
 
Course requirements:

1. Attend all lectures, Tuesday and Thursday mornings at 8:00 a.m.
2. Read the textbook, S.J. Shaw, History of the Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey, vol. 1: Empire of the Gazis.
3. Take midterm and final examinations, consisting of short essays and identification questions.
4. Office hours, Tuesday and Thursday mornings, after class until 10:30 a.m. in Bunche 5369.

There are no sections, no T.A.'s, and there will be no ASUCLA lecture notes.

Problems:

1. Turkish spellings. Turkish alphabet uses: c (for English shound j), ç (for 'ch'), ? (for 'sh')
        ? (soft g).  See Haccac, hadjdjadj, hatschtschatsch.
2. Varient place names due to linguistic nationalism: Istanbul called Constantinople (Greeks), Tzarigrad (Slavs), Kushta (Hebrew). Edirne called Adrianople, Izmir called Smyrna.
3. Varient views of Islam and Ottomans by different nationalistic groups. Nationalistic twisting of Ottoman history due to religious prejudice against Islam and in order to fit preconceptions, political campaigns.