why didn't the Ottomans convert people?

I was wondering, The Ottoman Empire was a big empire stretching 3 continents

None of the countries the Ottomans controlled are Muslim today? What world do you live in?

BTW I don't think it was very possible for Ottomans to convert Balkan Christians by force. Bosnians were converted at their own will. Mainly because the Bosnian mothers did not want to give up their babies to the state.

But some of that babies became the greatest statesmen and commanders of history.

Originally posted by Efraz Because the tax they take from Christians was greater than Muslims. Also they always needed Christian underlings to take children as soldiers and courtiers(also statesmen, architects, eunuchs, generals, viziers etc. etc.). A completely "Muslim Empire" wasn't in Ottomans' best interests. Also Christians were considered as individuals of Ottoman nation too. No one had a fanatical urge to convert them. These are ofcourse not the sole reasons but gives a picture on Ottoman state of mind. But this picture has only lasted only up to Mahmud II. After him Ottoman Empire has gone through a total change. Changed into something weaker but "Westernized" and so called modernized.

That is more hindsight. The taxation would have come no matter what. The taxation of non-Muslims exempted them from military service. Other forms of taxation affected everyone. The inclination to follow protocol (as al-Jassas mentioned above) seems reasonable. Quite a few of the earlier Sultans were relatively pious.

The Ottoman empire was almost exclusively centralised - in this period of history, aside from Ottoman Sultans from drawing comparisons with the Roman empire simply of the size of their state, but also because, like the Roman empire, the Ottoman empires' power came in many respects from slavery. The Sultan's personal household (at least under the Mehmet I/II and Murad I/II, Selim I "the grim" and Sulieman "the magnificent") was actually his - as Efraz says, the Eunarchs and Grand Viziers completely owed their position to him and were his property. This situation was obivously incredibly relative to the individual whims and abilities of the Sultan, but for much of the early modern period until the Jannisaries gained too much power, it worked very well. Moreover, the early system of accession for potential princes was an incredibly unique one - when the Sultan died a "race" would begin with all the princes to reach Constantinople first, and naturally this meant that the favourite prince would be situated nearest to the capital, and the least favourite in Armenia or Egypt. As per our question, this system thus means that it was not in the interests of any princeling in this situation to discourage the population's natural religious status in such a massive state if they wanted to gain power by such a "race". Moreover, because of the size of the empire and the massive tracts of near unpassable land, Ottoman sultans very rarely had fixed bases of control that they could rely upon to be loyal, and enforcing a religion upon them wasn't going to help this. The only situations in which Ottoman sultans tended to visit other areas of the empire were those when they had a massive amount of control needed there - centralisation went with the Sultan (this example can be seen in earlier states in the same area such as that of the Byzantine empire in some phases, as well as the Hittite Assyrian, and Seljuq empires) . For example, in Selim I's reign periods of vicious war and cold war were fought between the Ottomans and the Safavids under Shah Is'mail, and for this reason the only other large Ottoman palace outside of Istanbul fit for an Ottoman Sultan was right near the Safavid boarder. This shows that there was no logical reason to impose religious unity over a whole empire, and in any case, it would have been (for the reasons listed above) incredibly difficult to maintain and control. However, this had it's problems in the 1500s a Safavid backed preacher - Sheikh Alladien, preached a pro-Safavid pattern of Shia Islam in Anatolia, that caught along like fire and naturally damaged the control of the Sultan in some areas. Other reasons why religion was not enforced was to prevent rampant bureocracy - for a state as centralised as the Ottoman empire, concentrated maintainence of finances, for example, over a massive area would have been impossible. Therefore, much of this function by the "millet" system, which essentially left law and order, as well as taxation and recruitment to the local religious leaders of a said area. This also leads me onto another point - many of the Patriarchs and Chief Rabbis for some kinds of Christianity and Judaism were based in Constantinople, and therefore the Sultan could keep a close eye on them. Moreover, in comparison with the vehemently anti-heratical Western, Christian states, some smaller religions preffered the cosmopolitian universalism of the Ottoman empire, and despite claims from some such as the Despots of the Balkans and Ivan IV of Muskovy, they wouldn't need "liberating" as they were almost certainly more happy there.

Great post Aster


Just wanted to add that in the Balkans people also fled to the mountains to avoid the government, thus resulting to fewer people in cities/plains, thus less agricultural production and trade meaning less money for the Sultan. Cheaper to let them be.


Edited by Vorian - 21-May-2008 at 00:49

Ottomans had the ''Millet'' system, all Non-Muslims would live according to their own religious law but also had to pay more tax than Muslims. İf Ottomans had tried to convert Non-Muslims by force, they would lost many of their lands in Balkans.

Originally posted by Efraz BTW I don't think it was very possible for Ottomans to convert Balkan Christians by force. Bosnians were converted at their own will. Mainly because the Bosnian mothers did not want to give up their babies to the state.

Ottomans conscripted Jannisaries from muslim slavic familys too.

I think Al Jassas is correct, even if it wasn't a concious decision, it would have been how the Sultans were raised. (Remember, many Sultans had convert mothers)

2 reasons i can think off :
Economics: If everybody were Muslim, who would pay the extra taxes?
Recruits: Devşhirme was being held mainly among non-Muslim populations, suppling the Imperial Center with future State officials and the Army with the Yeniçeri.