Who are the Janissaries?

The Janissary Corps or the Yeni�eri Ocağı were an Ocak (Corp) of the infantry branch of the Kapıkulu Ocakları (Palace Guard Corps).

They were established during the reign of Mur�d I (he wasn't a Sult�n actually, he was only a Beğ; his son, B�yez�d I started using that title after the victory at Niğbolu [Nicopolis] in 1396) as an infantry bodyguard regiment, as the old military system wasn't enough.

There are many more stuff to write & tell about them...

I assume the same way as mameluks in Egypt. A flaw in any personal government is that you need to trust someone to cover your rearguard. At last you become dependant on him. There is nothing you can do to avoid it unless you have a very good personal qualities (what is not easy to find in a hereditary monarchy, when you grow up the heirs in a harem).

As far as I know, janissaires were child Christian slaves, who were educated in the Islam traditions. They were really hard. When a Spanish force conquered a stronghold in the Adriatic Sea they had to kill all of them, since they din't surrender. Sorry, I can't remember the name.

Just a minor correction: they were Bektashis, not Alevis; even though they never fought for Shi'a Islam, they fought for Sunnism.

Hey Chap, welcome back to AE, we'd missed you!

Before 1430, a system called Pen�ik (coming from Persian Panj meaning "Five) was used, in which one out of five prisoners-of-war were trained as guards, very similar to how the Medieval Islamic Ghul�ms and Egyptian Maml�ks were formed; the captives that were in the process of training were called Pen�iko�lan�. However, the Pen�ik system was abandoned in the early 15th century, largely because 1) Timur's Anatolian Invasion, 2) Ottoman Civil War and 3) Lack of enough captives to train.

So, around the year 1430, a new system called Dev�irme was introduced. According to this, each year, 1,000 Christian children were collected from their families (there are many accounts of families sending their kids, to assure their sons' positions in the society) and sent to Turkish village. Later, after learning Turkish and becoming Muslim, they were all sent to Istanbul, where they were sent to two places: 1) the Kap�kulu Ocaklar� (Palace Guard Corps) and 2) the Ender�n (Palace School). The Kap�kulu were selected from physicially strong youngsters whereas the intelligent were selected into the Ender�n. The ones sent to the Kap�kulu Ocaklar� were called Acemio�lan during their military training and following a ceremony named Kapuya ��kma, they were sent into the various corps among the Kap�kulu. The Ender�n students were, however, trained heavily on many subjects, incluiding literature, horseback riding, administrationship, archery, javelin-throwing and many other things I can't remember now. The graduates from Ender�n either became members of the Kap�kulu Cavalry (normally, Acemio�lans could become Kap�kulu Cavalries, but some students of Ender�n were also allowed) while most of them became Vez�rs (Viziers - Ministers) and other high-ranked beurocrats; the best of them rose up to become Vez�r-i �z�ms (Prime Minister, also called Sadr�z�m or Sadr-� �z�m).

Yes, Vez�r �br�him was a Greek from Western Anatolia, he was Sult�n S�leym�n's childhood friend, they grew up together at Manisa as best friends. �br�him later became the Sadr�z�m but as time passed, S�leym�n's wife H�rrem Sult�n (Roxolane/Roxolana) grew jealous of his power and made up false claims about him, such as him planning of de-throning S�leym�n and becoming a sultan.